Minipa's Trope Discussions and How to Not Suck Shit at Writing
by Minipa
Summary: In this instructional piece, virulent critique will be done on all sorts of Fanfiction tropes, cliches, and other pet peeves. Examples will be given where names of stories and the author responsible will be mentioned. Join me in this quest to find out just why and how stories such as: harem, god-Like, bash, and grammatically horrible stories plague the most favourited.
1. CH1 - Mary Sue Traits Part I

**Chapter 1 - Mary Sue Traits Part I**

 **After getting a review from someone, I decided to move this to another story as it is and SHOULD be a separate entity from the Misadventure's story.**

 **Make sure you guys put it down in reviews on what trope you hate the most and notice! Also if you put a story with that trope then you get a random honourable mention in the next chapter.**

 **Inspired by Svane's Fanfiction rants before I began to do my own research! Will be doing a discussion of all the traits of Mary Sues in these Trope Discussions!**

 **Go read 'Svane's Angry Rants and Writing Advice' for some shits and giggles!**

 **I have also created the forums 'Tropes Discussion and Bashing'! Join up and let's talk!**

 **The link won't post completely so just add the following link to the default fanfiction website. myforums/Minipa/5465876/**

 **These tropes will be geared towards these stories in descending order of priority: Fairy Tail, Naruto x Fairy Tail Crossover, and Naruto.**

 **We will cover cliché story lines, common mistakes, and general themes that apply to those if not all fandoms.**

 **NOTE: FOR THOSE OF YOU THAT ARE WANTING TO LEARN HOW TO WRITE A STORY (INSTEAD OF SEEING ME RANT), LOOK AT CHAPTERS 9, 10, 12, 13, and 14!**

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 **January 3, 2018 Update: The trope discussions have been reread and many grammar errors have been fixed. Please let me know if any of you have spotted something noticeably irritating.**

 **January 5, 2018 Update: Many of the sections are actually dependent on the reader's opinion. Therefore, a tag of (SB) will be added to signify anything that is story breaking regardless of opinion. For example: grammar, dialogue, and incorrect word usages. As of this date, the trope discussions is under another edit after certain relevations. Unnecessary hate speech directed to authors and stories will now be removed - the undirected vulgar humour however, will stay.**

 **May 3, 2018 Update: Also, I am starting a YT Youtube video series for the Trope Discussions - my channel: Panda Inspirations. First video will be out by the end of this week!**

 **May 7, 2018 Update: Part I of Video Series is out! Go on youtube and put the following in the url:** **watch?v=FyMKFVSZCLM**

 **September 1, 2019 Update:** Trope Discussions discord! (https):/discord.(gg)/7c4gJST

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When we read fanfiction, there are many 'Tropes' or clichés that we see in stories. Now, for the most part, the fandoms I am well versed in are: Fairy Tail, Naruto, One Piece, and Bleach, with the first two being the most prominent of my 'fanfiction' expertise. Cringey? Good.

Now what I will be talking about is all the different types of tropes, why people write them, ways to avoid them, and how to not encourage them.

This chapter is going to be focused on the more general tropes that are used in many fandoms! The specific Fairy Tail ones and Fairy Tail x Naruto crossovers one will appear in the next discussions!

Let us begin!

For this discussion, we will be covering the general definition of Tropes, Clichés, and the different types of Mary Sues!

Now, I won't be using the official oxford dictionary definition for anything. I will be using fanfiction's best friend, urban dictionary!

 **Trope:** Despite the erroneous definitions already published here, trope on the internet really refers to an often overused plot device. It can also be described as another variation on the same theme. TV shows, movies, comics, games, anime', & books are full of tropes & many rabid fan-sites now name & track said tropes with a self-explanatory title for each one.

So in simple terms, a trope is an overused plot device. Keep in mind, tropes aren't necessarily 'bad'. If you're a shit writer, then you're a shit writer. No amount of different story lines will fix that. However, overused tropes can be done decently.

Let's take the ' **Ice Dragon Slayer** ' trope, or IDS for short. For the most part, the IDS trope users are often new fanfiction writers that lack experience and _\- more often that not -_ imagination.

A story I liked particularly (I read it about a year ago, back in a time when I wasn't so anal about stories I would read), was a story called **'The Rise of the Leviathan'** \- where an ice dragon slayer named Joseph was introduced. I do not think it is on fanfiction anymore but I believe it is on another website.

Now for clichés. I can't really find a good definition so I will just define it myself.

 **Cliché:** A word to describe an overused expression and/or plot device. Those who would use expression or storylines consider cliché are often unimaginative and predictable.

Now again, clichés aren't necessarily bad; but, there are some clichés that are straight in the please-drink-bleach zone of writing and should be gutted and thrown straight into Chernobyl by a radioactive octopus. I shall speak of them in their own categories later - I pray for your sanity then.

A good example of a cliché in general would be a 'Mary Sue'. A Mary Sue is basically the pile-driven rotten egg stew of bad writing all blended together in a horrid combination of personalities, or the lack of - in a character.

 **Why Tropes and Clichés?:** Many people who write stories using common tropes and clichés are usually people who have no imagination and want to go for the simplest plot. Keep in mind however, some people don't know the tropes before coming in. This is because new writers tend to think similarly when it comes to a story line.

 **How to Avoid when Reading:** To avoid tropes when reading, you can either read all my intermissions to become experienced on what to not read. You should certainly _not_ encourage such tropes with reviews such as 'UPDATEEE', 'MOAARR', etc. The other way is to read so much fanfiction that you become so well-versed that you know every different form of unimaginative textualized waste before you even read the first chapter.

 **How to Avoid when Writing:** If you are a first-time writer - as this is mainly the reason why Tropes and Clichés are used - then you should consider world building and getting a beta. Instead of saying 'Hey! I thought of a story I want to write let's just write whatever comes out of my ass and post it without proof reading!' (Please guys, this is a cliché by itself), you should start making notes for world building.

I too, had these issues when I first started writing my story. I would often have grammar mistakes, plot holes, unanswered questions that directly relate to how my story works, etc. Of course, it was through asking several betas as well as studying myself that I was able to fix it. The reason I am writing all of this is to allow people to understand why doing things I am going to talk about is _not_ good story telling, and how authors can avoid such writing.

When it comes to world building, you should be asking yourself many questions relating to writing your story. As in, what is the plot? What is the goal of the character(s). What abilities do they have, what are they like, etc. Essentially, for any story you write, unless its like a humongous pile of rotten duck penis that is ' **The Nothing Dragon Slayer's Misadventures in Fairy Tail** ', then you should build the skeletons of your story before continuing. You should plan out at least 1-2 arcs ahead of where you are writing now, so you can pick out plot holes and fix them before you discover them too late, and end up having to rewrite a 300,000+ word story.

One more thing: BETAS BETAS BETAS BETAS. Always seek a second, third, of even a million pairs of eyes! Okay not that many, but you might think 'this is the best story ever written!' when you look at your own story; however, keep in mind that, you are blinded by your own excitement - I call this author bias (not to be confused with author's bias).

You should always have a beta to proof read for grammar (I understand some repeated or missing words may be forgotten as I do that often). A good beta reader will also see the plot holes in your story. If it is your first story and the beta is like, 'no issues!', then the beta is not a competent enough beta and their only story is a 1,000 word author's note.

If you DO have grammar mistakes, it is important to edit the chapter and get rid of them if and when they are spotted. Sometimes when I upload a chapter, I might have a wrong pronoun or erroneous tenses in my story - simply because I overlooked them. If someone points them out to me, I fix them right away so other readers won't have to deal with bad grammar. Many authors don't have the courtesy to do this even with MANY people pointing them out.

This is just bad practice in general and aspiring authors such as yourself should not do such a thing. Sometimes, if someone tells me I have bad grammar in general, I would reread all my chapters and fix sentences that simply do not sound right.

 **Now, keep in mind that clichés and tropes AREN'T story breaking or necessarily 'bad'**.

Overused plot lines and phrases can get annoying and predictable. However, clichés and tropes could have their own twist and spin to it, where your story could be set apart from the rest of the repetitive drabbles.

Ex. Let's take the ice dragon slayer route for example. This has got to be, hands down, the most overused magic in all of Fairy Tail OC fanfiction. Not only that, many of these type of stories tend to be a female OC that ends up with Gray

Instead of doing that, you could have the Ice Dragon Slayer join a different guild, or be older than the main cast - putting him on the level or close to the level of Laxus.

 **The Ice Dragon Slayer Games** by Kopaka777

The above story is a good example of a different twist on a trope. The OC is a member of Sabertooth, NOT a female OCxGray, and also not some asshole named Kai.

He is a member of Sabertooth and was previously unaffiliated with Fairy Tail. I do not remember the rest of the story other than that but please feel free to give it a read.

Tropes and clichés can be done in a way that is less predictable or annoying to read, you only need to be more creative!

Now let us move on to Mary Sues!

 **Mary Sue:** A Mary Sue is a character that is not vulnerable to their own problems. This could vary in terms of personality but the general image of the Sue is meant to make the readers look up and respect them - but not relate. There are many types of sues, where the subcategories will outline the more popular personality traits Mary Sues could have.

Now, some of you might remember the swarm of internet critics that called Rey a Mary Sue from Star Wars: The Force Awakens. One of the greatest reasons is that any vulnerable moments she had, example: self-doubt, times of turmoil, etc., was solved rather abruptly. While I do applaud an attempt to create a vulnerable moment, if the problem is solved too quickly, it might actually prove to make the character more of a Sue as opposed to not writing the scene in the first place.

Here are some examples of Mary Sue stories off the top of my head:

 **WotC: Fairy Tail** by BrxenArrow

 **Twin Dragons of Fairy Tail** by Wolf Rodriguez

 **Fairy Tail: Auberon, King of the Fairies** by FreedonNadd

Now keep in mind, there's actually quite a lot of people who like Mary Sues stories. Sometimes, readers don't really want to read a story as some sort of epic journey with a relatable character. Some people simply just want to read something to pass the time, and I don't fault them for that. Despite that, I believe characters that are Mary Sue are a bad practice and is a general disservice to fandom.

Now that you guys have a basic understanding of Mary Sues, let us move onto to the subcategories! YAY!

I know what you're thinking. Just saying the words Mary Sue is like filling a Fiat Multipla with horse semen and ramming it straight into your bathroom while you're trying to take a dump; but Subcategories? That's far too inhumane to even discuss.

 **Types of Mary Sues**

Now, after the definition of Mary Sues, I will be expanding into different types of sues. A Mary Sue doesn't necessarily need to be happy-go-lucky, all-knowing, or omnipotent. They can have various personalities and appearances; but, all of them will fit into the simple definition of being not vulnerable to their flaws.

What if they have ZERO flaws? You can't be vulnerable to what you don't have.

 **Anti-Sue** : Anti-sue is a character that is created when someone is scared of making their character a Mary Sue. Instead of creating an actual character, they start adding numerous amounts of informed flaws to eliminate ANY possible thought that their character is a sue. They make their characters the complete opposite of a Mary Sue! They have more flaws than the guy who wrote the new Berserk.

This type of character tends to be someone who gets betrayed by everyone, has PTSD, has every tragic backstory available, is a 5'2 manlet, has some sort of cancer diabetes joint problem, and also has type-6 Parkinson's at the age of 4. Also his entire family are slaves.

Characters are meant to be RELATED with. People in Syria don't have access to the internet so if you make a character like someone growing up beside ISIS than it won't be possible.

Sometimes, the informed flaws that the authors add aren't necessarily flaws as well. These include but are not limited to: freckles, being humble, wearing glasses, or even being average looking is not a flaw. A realistic flaw someone may have on their appearance is the lack of confidence despite being objectively decent looking.

So what exactly am I saying?

People in real life have flaws, definitely. However, it is important to recognize what are flaws and what aren't. While everyone struggles with their own issues and may have insecurities with how they look, etc., creating a character that would appear at the absolute lowest on the social ladder is not the way to write a relatable character.

 **Victim Sue (direct definition from urban dictionary):** The Victim Sue is your whiny, wimpy, pathetic female character who can't seem to do much of anything except cry and get herself into trouble that the romantic interest of the fic has to rescue her from.

To expand on this definition, a victim sue is characterized by a perpetual state of victimhood. These characters are often filled with angst. These victim sues are often extremely unlucky and basically the plot of the story is 'how to screw this guy over.' The circumstances or plot points are often absurd and unlikely to the point where many specific events occur for the sole purpose of increasing angst and the reader's pity.

While it is reasonable to sympathize with a character dealing with many unfortunate circumstances, it actually becomes more and more difficult to relate to a character that is victimized because of their own refusal to do anything to prevent them - often having a love interest to bring them out.

Keep in mind, there are many people in real life that deal with insecurity, and many more who are unable to escape from a spiral of depression and anxiety, especially on their own. So why is it a Mary Sue if people may have the same stories in real life? I would say it is the miracle upbringing that tends to happen in these stories that bring forth a happily ever after.

I personally do not like these type of stories as it teaches people that simply dreaming about a better future will cause a saviour to occur. Such things do not happen in real life and only through the determination to be happy, can people escape from a seemingly victimized existence.

 **Not a Mary Sue:** Someone who makes a character borderline Mary Sue but puts in the summary 'Not a Mary Sue'. This is written by someone who doesn't want to be called out that their character is a Mary Sue, or basically wants all the readers to know that their character is a victim sue.

Here is an example excerpt from a story's summary below.

 **Corporation Princess and the Frat Boy** by Alimackajac

 _'A corporate princess runs from her father's plans to follow her dreams that lead to a Magnolia University. Will fraternities like the Dragon slayers, Elements and a sorority named The Bodies keep our high society princess from achieving them? AU Rated M for later chapters. Only minor OC's No Mary Sues.'_

Personally I thought the story wasn't long enough to actually see enough of the OC's. However, the summary said 'No Mary Sues.' Why? There are a couple reasons for this: one of them is that the character DOES have Mary Sue traits but not to the point that it is story breaking. Sometimes, these not-Mary-Sues can actually be acceptable characters depending on the situation.

It is also understandable that authors who want to do this because they are afraid of potential flaming that may come IF their character is an obvious Sue. However, like real life, characters are various shades of grey on the Mary Sue scale, and different numbers could be accepted depending on the situation.

My main issue is that 'No Mary Sues' are put into the summary. If you are confident that your character is NOT a Mary Sue, is there even a need to do this? If you are writing a story with a MC that you KNOW is Mary Sue, etc., then why write it so?

Fanfiction is made in a way where you can edit the stories if you need to. Instead of leaving the previous chapters unchanged or your character the way they are, it is easy to simply reread your own story, revaluate the choices you made on the story, and simply correct them.

This is not necessarily 'bad' or story breaking, but I feel doing such is an attempt to 'prevent' the readers from giving criticism when they know there are flaws in their stories.

 **Definitions below are from Urban Dictionary, with my own examples and understanding.**

 **Warrior Sues:** This type sue is usually loud and obnoxious (yes, sues don't have to act like some 60-year-old Kung Fu master meditating in Tibet). This type of sue usually has a tragic or mysterious past that made them become a warrior.

Example Excerpt (that I pulled out of my ass).

 _Kai was just a six-year old boy. Far too young to have just lost all those he loved. Mother, father, sister…all have perished from the dark mages that came unannounced, and unprovoked into his village._

 _He could not see anything, for the fires and smoke covered his vision. There was nothing left, all that he loved, was destroyed. But he would not stop here, because he would continue on. For them._

 _"I WILL GET STRONGER, SO I CAN PROTECT THOSE I LOVE!"_

See that? This is a very common warrior sue past. Keep in mind this particular back story isn't a bad one, it's just that whoever uses this often gives 'Kai' 60239480 different dragon slayer all magics where he can beat Acnologia by pissing on him.

This type of past is NOT a bad thing, but it is often a precursor to a very common type of 'Lawful Good' protagonists that tend to be overpowered beyond reason.

 **Magical Sues:** Basically just like a Warrior Sue with the tragic past what not. However, the Magic Sues are often calm and collected. They are wise beyond their years and can often use a million different types of magics. All elementals, slayers, illusion, some random seal magics, and everything else! A good way to find OC's that belong in this category is to look for OC's while they are still children, then see if they make comments about life and general that are FAR beyond their years. Basically things you would expect to hear from a 40 year-old philosophy professor.

There are many examples of Naruto being a Magical Sue.

 **Punk Sue:** A punk Sue is usually written by beginning female authors. Which is actually a large portion of the Fanfiction Demographic. This type of sue is loud, obnoxious, annoying, and basically someone you would want in a Juvenile Correction Center. This type of sue has angst following them like a plague, however, they aren't necessarily a bad person. They are basically just angry at the horrendous tragic past gladiator slave war rape or the other possible backstories in that category given to them by the author.

This type of Sue is like the edgy shit that teenagers go through as a phase and write then post stories based on what they think is 'cool' at the time.

Example of one story I can think of off the top of my head.

 **One's Road to Remembrance** by Insane Dominator.

The character above is betrayed by MANY of his 'friends'. Friends that do not betray him are often condemned to horrible fates simply to add to his back story. Then he has angst bleeding from very orifice of his body to create this Nazi Schnitzel of sympathy milking.

This story also is in the category of Jerk Sues, which will be talked about below.

 **Jerk Sues:** Jerk Sues is the tendency for darker and edgier writers to create a bitter, ill-spirited, confrontational, and downright asshole while still managing to make them perfect.

These characters in stories will often get away with being a bullying fuck head. The other characters tend to tolerate such tactics, and are often described as 'tough', 'rugged', with some sort of 'charm' that probably doesn't exist. In real life, these jerk sues would be unintelligent, unlikeable chads that get onto everyone's nerves.

You might be asking, what's the part where these characters are perfect? Easy, the part where they are untouchable. Often times, nothing will actually get past them and they often stand off against authority figures who would 'praise' them for their boldness - especially true in Naruto council bashing fics which is completely retarded by the way.

Canonical characters often lets these sues walk all over them despite them being annoying, loud, arrogant, and usually powerful enough to be some sort of second coming of Jesus with horrible anger issues.

Jerk Sues also often have a tragic or edgy past pushed to the point where war orphans in Syria would burst down in tears just to comfort them.

 **Misfit Sue:** A misfit sue is a Mary Sue who start as geeks, nerds, social outcasts, but 100% not the realistic untalented, can't do anything, can't even talk to a fucking girl/guy, authors that write them. Now, this type of Sue doesn't start out fucking drop dead please have my babies gorgeous. But then, they actually get a makeover and all of a sudden, HAREM.

These sues are often told they have some sort of 'secret power,' 'hidden talent,' or 'massive potential' that the character never knew about.

Although a comedy, the movie 'My Super Ex-Girlfriend' has a pretty good example of a Misfit Sue.

 **Neo Mary Sues:** Neo Mary Sues are perfect in a different way than Mary Sues. They are usually Punk type sues that wear shit like skinny jeans, combat boots, high tops, band t-shirts, beanies, etc. They probably have some asininely retarded hair colour and weird eyes.

Ex. Orange, pink, violet, or fuck even Heterochromia eyes - the one with different coloured eyes.

Basically, this is a character every edgy fucking teen wants to be and imagines themselves being. These characters usually have a 'dark or mysterious past' with 'flaws' that people can't actually relate with.

These are a very common type of Mary Sues that people tend to go with when they try to avoid being a Sue but fail spectacularly. Imagine yourself as a character and change some things based on their backstories - this is a great way to begin an OC instead of putting in imaginary qualities like the fucking god-forbid OC maker.

 **Mary Sue Traits**

After the types of Sues, here are some features or traits that sue type characters might have.

 **Weird Hair:** Seriously, there are people with absurdly senseless hair that aren't natural. There is no purpose of this type of hair other than to make the Sue stand out. If your hair can make Pennywise look normal than you got to take rethink your life choices.

An acceptable reason to have unnatural hair is if your OC has a long line of people with that colour hair in the story.

However, if mom + dad = brown hair then all of a sudden you got white/black/rainbow ambient hair. What? The fuck is that shit.

When it comes to hair colour, instead of what is considered 'regular' hair - you know, black, brown, blonde, red? They will have shit like rainbow highlights, zaptastic super Saiyan 3 hair that makes Yugi Moto feel ashamed of himself on a hair style contest.

Does the hair colour play an important part in the story? Ex. The Targaryen white hair that is a symbol of their bloodline.

Note: If you want an entire royal family line with hair and eyes colours of the rainbow, sure go ahead. All the above traits can be pulled off but Mary Sues tend to have these traits just for the purpose of making their character look better.

 **Irrational Abilities:** Jesus Christ this is an actual fucking thing. OC's with that use 9001 different magics with reasoning that defy the physics or rules already set in canon. What's the point of having a magic for EVERY possible moment and just keep adding more? Stick with a few main ones and just do that. Unless its dragon slayer magic as that's a cliché that should just stop happening. It's not a contest for the most retarded element people, there are more magics than slayer magics.

Example of a story with ten million different magics and one with some bloodline shit.

 **Fairy Tail: Auberon, King of the Fairies** by FreedonNadd

 **Path of a Wizard from Alvarez** by Warmachine375

This particular trait is one that is most common in superpower, magic, or fantasy type stories. A world with different types of abilities such as Fairy Tail or even My Hero Academia have a easy trap for authors to fall into.

The Fairy Tail canon has mentioned that it is difficult for mages to learn multiple types of magic that is not related to their own, ex: Mirajane can learn transformation magic because she knows the basic steps from her takeover. However, learning multiple elemental dragon slayer magics before the character turns ten is irrational.

While every author wants their character to be amazingly powerful despite the scaling issues that come with having a million magics. It is important to make sure that the character does not break preestablished boundaries set by canon. Some amazing abilities and bloodlines can be made for characters WITHOUT being a Mary Sue. Having ten different magics just to have no magical power to use them would be a type of Mary Sue.

 **Names:** Some outlandish name can also be a trait of Mary Sues. Something like 'Xylanderphoria' or some impossible, completely out of the norm name. Keep in mind, EXTREMELY common names can be Mary Sues - basically just authors that try to use simple names to not be Mary Sues but fail spectacularly. Kai, Alex, Emily, names starting with Kais are very popular names for OC Mary Sues.

Seriously why Kai? What is so god damned special about Kai - use Lionel or some shit, that sounds cool and not Mary Sueish.

Now keep in mind, characters who have these characteristics aren't automatically Mary Sue. It's basically like, Mary Sues have these characteristics but not all OC's with these traits are Mary Sues. Mary Sues have these traits for the sole purpose of the author adding more shit to make the character more 'likeable.'

But, if the OC has a trait whose last name is 'Sapphire' or something of similar categories, and it just so happens their entire family line are sapphire miners, jewelers, etc., then that makes sense. Last names such as 'Fisher' and 'Smith' come from their professions, so the last name 'Sapphire' wouldn't be that nonsensical.

If their name is Crystal Sapphire with no prior indication as to why, AND their magic is sapphire/gem magic then that IS a Mary Sue.

You can't fucking name a child Crystal Sapphire knowing they will use Crystal magic - and don't give me that let's train him/her in sapphire magic too. That's garbage parents, garbage backstories and a horrible attempt to cover up a Mary Sue. You could do something like - 10th Generation sapphire mage or something. Shit can make sense without being spontaneous and sporadic.

Now, to reiterate, a meaningful name that relates to the abilities of personalities of the OC is often a indicator of a Mary Sue. Of course, this is if the Mary Sue has no prior history that could possibly explain why the names are like that.

Ex. Sapphire name to Jewelers, or the name 'Rune' to a family of rune magic users.

HERE COMES A BIG RANT. HEY AUTHORS, why Kai, why Alex? Why Kaito? Why a name that sounds like Kai or begins with Kai? TELL ME OC authors, why do all of you get a massive boner for a name meaning 'Ocean' in Japanese? Is this the next level of cringe and edge that I have not yet achieved? The fuck is with Alex? Alex is short for Alexander or Alexandra, a Greek name. WHY IS THIS SO POPULAR. DO YOU PEOPLE DRINK BAD DECISIONS WITH SHIT GDP? Okay I'm good, rant over, fuck Kai, fuck Alex, fuck me, and fuck you. Okay I'm good, rant over, fuck Kai, fuck Alex, fuck me, and fuck you.

Anyways, another thing is that a differently spelled version of an otherwise common name can also be a sign of Mary Sue. The fact that this is done in real life by parents who think they are cool but actually isn't are simply cancerous unqualified individuals wanting their kids to be different. This is actually quite worrying for me in terms of the future of humanity.

Regardless, a good example of Mary Sue names are the vowels being substituted with Y's.

Example, 'Krystal' or 'Fyora.'

References to gemstones, flowers, celestial bodies, or pretty colours. Apparently this is a common trope in all fandoms - Fairy Tail included.

Example, 'Violet', 'Ruby', 'Sapphire', and 'Luna'.

With Punk Sues, Jerk Sues, or even Emo Sues, the name could be something spooky, mystical or just darkness related in general.

Example, 'Raven', 'Trinity', or some dumbass fucking demon name like 'Rogum'.

Here is a big one especially. The name will be a Japanese type name - often meaning something poetic most likely from the incorrect usage of google translate, and they will top it off with a weird dragon last name.

Imagine some OC named Hikari Sapphire or Sakura Daggio or hell, even RYU.

The name meaning dragon is overused. Names referring to common elements such as Hikari, or Kai (that's ocean), are all overused.

Again, having names like these are not necessarily bad; BUT, a good reason should be given in why they have such names, even if their parents are just straight up outcast assholes with no life. If your character doesn't have a meaningful name, you don't need to write a whole bible on why they're named that.

Don't take those two examples seriously though, as Hikari Sapphire sounds like the most autistic name in the known Universe and I would slit my own throat before naming my own kid something as stupid as that.

 **Conclusion:** I will say it again and again, just having these traits does NOT make the story garbage. These traits are what Sues tend to have, but characters with traits such as these are not necessarily Sues. If you have an OOC Naruto god-like harem which plagues the top of the favourites/reviews/followed section, then it is likely a Mary Sue story. I will be doing a discussion on why stories like that are so popular as well.

Also keep in mind that if you plan on making a character WITH some of the traits I mentioned above. It is important NOT to add them simply for the sake of doing so! Some of these qualities can be easily explained on why they have those qualities! WORLD BUILDING is very important and you should always ask yourselves questions about your own plot as if you were the first reader.

 **Theme for this chapter** : NEVER ADD FOR THE SAKE OF ADDING!

Anyways, that's all folks! See you all next discussion!

REMEMBER, a Mary Sue is someone who is not vulnerable to their own flaws!

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 **Chapter 1 completed! Next Chapter: Mary Sue Traits Part II**

 **This is it for the first Trope discussion. The next discussion will be on a more detailed list of Mary Sue traits such as body descriptions, clothing, mysterious pasts, magics, etc!**

 **If you guys think I made a wrong point, or I missed things in my discussions, feel free to let me know in PM or reviews!**

 **Make sure you guys check out my other stories!**

 **Read my profile and join my Trope discussion forums!**

 **[ROTLB: The Birth of the Light Bringer]**

 **[ROTLB: Light of Fairies]**

 **[Chef Ramsay]**

 **[A God's Redemption]**

 **[The Nothing Dragon Slayer's Misadventures in Fairy Tail]**

 **Put the challenges and examples down at Reviews! Let's get a discussion going here!**

 **I have also created the forums 'Tropes Discussion and Bashing'! Join up and let's talk!**

 **The link won't post completely so just add the following link to the default fanfiction website. myforums/Minipa/5465876/**

 **May 3, 2018 Update: Also, I am starting a YT Youtube video series for the Trope Discussions - my channel: Panda Inspirations. First video will be out by the end of this week!**

 **Minipa, out!**


	2. CH2 - Mary Sue Traits Part II

**Chapter 2 - Mary Sue Traits Part II**

 **This is part 2 of the Trope Discussion! This time we will be focusing on the Mary Sue specifically, more appearances, their common usages and how they tie in to OC/OOC creation and writing!**

 **Explanations of common Mary Sue story factors will also be done!**

 **Make sure you guys join the Trope forums! I want to see some cancer there stat!**

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Before we move onto the to the Mary Sue aspect, I will be going over something I have been talking about a lot in the story 'The Nothing Dragon Slayer's Misadventures in Fairy Tail'.

The fabled, cringey usages of **'Mysterious Pasts'** and some of its related content.

For those of you who value your anal virginities, please skip the next portion of the chapter, otherwise you would feel what it is like to have your prostate stretched by a bulldozer.

 **Mysterious Pasts:** Now what exactly is a mysterious past? Essentially, it is as the name says - basically a past that is mysterious…that is, something that happened to the character prior to the storyline that is unknown to the reader and possibly to the other characters.

What makes it so bad? Nothing really; but, what DOES make it bad are the common usages with it as a plot device.

For the most part, the words 'Mysterious Past' are put in the summary itself for the following reasons:

\- Learned from other authors doing the same.

\- Does not want to put in the time and effort to create a proper backstory, and simply world build as the story goes in with countless flashbacks.

\- Basically a fail safe, because the past can be changed as it goes due to having no set storyline.

With this cliché, the author will often put a note saying that the Mysterious past will be explained and/or they have plans.

Now, What does this mean really?

Many stories never actually explain the past as it is just there to make the character look cool. The other times, the mysterious past is unresolved, where sometimes they simply add another OC that pops up just to fuck with the MC OC.

 **The Emerald Knight's Tale** by SigmaFang

This is a good example of a 'mysterious past' story where the author does not real much about the character (even his actual name) after 100,000+ words of story. Although this is not necessarily bad or story breaking, it does indeed to lower interest in the character's backstory. If something is kept from people for too long, they tend to forget about it and it no longer becomes important.

In addition, keep in mind that many new writers are impatient, and simply want to write where canon starts. I too, have those tendencies. In my own stories, **'A God's Redemption'** and **'The Rise of the Light Bringer'** , I am nowhere near canon. That doesn't mean I have to write exactly when Fairy Tail canon begins and tell the story of my OC in a series of flash backs.

Here are some other stories and their summaries using the term as a plot device.

 **Lula the Dragon Slayer Wife** by SecretBlackMagic

 _'A mysterious girl with an even more mysterious past arrives at FairyTail claiming to be Gajeel's wife. Now with this new girl and Levy fighting for his love, the Iron Dragon Slayer must make up his mind on which one shall be his mate. What will become of this strained love triangle? What do all these Dragon Slayers have to do with it?'_

 **Thaw my Heart** by Emma and Anna2442

 _'Another new member has joined FairyTail, and with power the strength of a god, a dark secret, and a surprising choice of a best friend, she has the entire guild in an uproar. One Ice Mage in particular is more than intrigued by this frosty wizard, but her mysterious past leaves everyone with unanswered questions. Yet Gray is determined to find these answers... no matter the cost.'_

 **Flashbacks:** Flashbacks are important when telling the back stories of characters. However, your main OC should not have a million flashbacks every other chapter to explain it. Seriously, a story that starts out in the middle of the action then tells a bunch of microflashbacks is quite annoying. Movies that do this often have ONE large flashback that go from the beginning all the way to the first scene.

*Freeze frame, record scratch

However, if there are constant jumps between the current scene and what happened years ago, it becomes difficult to actually grasp just what is and when it is happening.

Here is an example of a story that is a bit excessive on flashbacks.

 **The Dragon Slayer of Light** by Shadow Night Destroyer.

Readers don't have your world building notes, if there is any. We can't track 50 different flashbacks and order them on a neat paper timeline!

It is understandable to have flashbacks when the main OC meets another character, especially if their backstories aren't revealed beforehand. After all, you can't exactly write the backstories of every single character in multiple chapters, right? Oh shit people actually do that. Okay never mind then.

Still, flashbacks should be done when plot points need to be told, and if it is to be done, it should be done where it is easy to tell what is happening, and when it is happening. If you have to have 40,000 words of constant little 500 word flashbacks in a 100,000 word story, then you should probably just write the story starting from the flashback timeline instead of HAVING it as a flashback.

There are times when flashbacks ARE better even if they are used multiple times in one chapter, that is, if the alternative is time skipping multiple times in the same section. Time-skipping could throw off the pacing more so than flashbacks.

An example would be my own story 'The Rise of the Light Bringer'; for those of you who read chapter 7 through 11, you will see that there is a massive one-shot flashback regarding the history of my story. I could have put it as multiple dream sequences, but that would have been redundant, repetitive, and seemingly never ending. I ended dropping all of it at once opposed to writing a separate prologue book simply because that would have been less convenient.

Now, when it comes to distant histories of timelines that happened years before the actual story, the ideal thing would simply be write a completely separate book. In fact, that was my first idea when writing the history; however, because I already have five planned books for my story, I just put the entire history portion into multiple chapters. It certainly isn't the most perfect way to do it, but still better than the alternatives.

Now, the over usages of 'Mysterious Pasts' and 'Flashbacks' could be a grey line between what is overboard and what is not. The definitions above explains what it is like to be extremely overboard with flashbacks and pasts.

An over usage of flashbacks simply meant that there wasn't enough effort or thought put into world building as the author should have done.

To avoid these tropes, simply world build! Think of all the main characters, develop their pasts before actually doing any major writing. Plan who is going to show up in advance or how they are going to show up.

Ex. Does he come to the guild just to find the other characters, are they meeting during a mission, etc.

Are there any characters that will play as an antagonist to the OC? When it comes to revealing what happened to the character, is it enough to fill an arc? If the backstory of your OC is enough to fill an arc, it should be written as an arc, and not as constant flashbacks that alternate between what is happening now and what is happening then over and over.

It is also VERY important to NOT to spam their pasts at the beginning of the chapter NOR should you NEVER reveal them despite constant mentions!

Also, beta readers should be considered when world building to keep track of plot holes.

Always ask yourself these questions: Is the flashback necessary to the plot? Can that flashback told as a separate arc? Is the past of the OC a copy of Erza's or Sasuke's but in Syria with a side of AIDS and Ebola? Tragic pasts are sometimes necessary for more radical outlooks on life; but, keep in mind that whatever past that you decide, it should not be completely overboard and sound like the diary of a Jewish teenager in 1944.

These definitions are combined with my own from **TVTropes.**

Now that we have the two little tropes out of the way, we can get straight to the Mary Sue bashing!

 **Mary Sue Traits**

 **Personality:** Pfft. This doesn't exist in a Mary Sue. Mary Sues don't really have any sort of relatable personality. There is no character to define, and basically the Mary Sue is there to be god-like and to be defined as random acts of kindness, heroism, perfect romances and *shudders* HAREMS, as well as all-mighty god-like fake struggle powers.

*Cough* Elemental dragon slayer and Rinnegan Naruto *cough*

Whoever came up with this idea, I wish your toast lands butter side down every time you have breakfast, and that you find yourself without toilet paper every time you go to the bathroom.

Keep in mind, a Mary Sue can be perfect with many types of personalities.

Example: a shy Mary Sue that is socially awkward but manages to snag ten guys in a reverse harem despite never deserving it nor is it even logical for it to happen. It only happens because the horrible author says it happens. All ideas are perfect, all jokes are funny - even dumb puns, and will also give perfect advice in romance EVEN without prior knowledge. Everyone trusts the Sue, not only that, the Sue can turn enemies into friends with one speech that they could not have thought of themselves.

Sound familiar? Put a story down below and they will be edited into the story as examples!

 **Powers of Persuasion:** Here comes the almighty persuasive skills of my Mary Sue escaped sentient McDonalds potato! Ok now, I fucking ate it and saved everyone from reading a horrible fanfic.

Every single person will think the Mary Sue's opinion is some god given commandment that should be followed at all costs. Even if there are logic flaws in the argument itself! A good example is character who are usually stubborn randomly take their side.

These are often an indicator of an inexperienced author simply because they do not know how to properly write a struggle. Naruto, OC's, or other canonical characters cannot simply change someone's opinions with a switch! Logical arguments WITHIN the confines of the character should be used.

I see this happening many times in Naruto vs Council stories in which Naruto convinces the council - who are supposed to be extremely stubborn - in just one or two speeches about him being the son of Minato, etc. Then he becomes Hokage. Just because you have logical arguments that COULD potentially work, it doesn't mean you should add a bunch of Mary Sue traits that would be required for the character to actually THINK of the argument.

OOCness is a sign of laziness and bad writing. This is very prevalent in Naruto stories when the writer simply wants to skip scenes he/she does not know how to write to further with other parts of the story.

This sort of unbalanced writing will have its own section later on.

Again, no examples off the top of my head, so help me out :)

 **Friend to Everything:** Exactly as it is. The almighty power of friendship and Nakama that cannot even be defeated by 10,000 Acnologia's. Simply Nakama the shit out of everyone no matter who they are. Nobody will ever be as awesome as the Sue, and the Sue will forgive everyone regardless of their faults or past misdeeds.

AND they will risk their lives of safety for another person, even to people they just met. This is such a classic trait that if you see a dragon slayer be like 'oh yeah gonna save you to protect whatever the fuck + saint philosophy' - it's probably a Sue.

While this is prevalent in Naruto who befriends ABSOLUTELY everyone, this could be a canon sue itself. Basically the character designed by the manga author has Sue traits itself. Writers should not use this excuse to make their own OC's this way, especially without proper build up.

Remember when Naruto switched Nagato and made him revive everyone? That is actually a grey line because we all know how Nagato was manipulated into doing such things out of hatred. Naruto had the proper tools and ideas to convince Nagato as they were both Jiraiya's students. Obito was a bit on the sketchy side but Naruto had some tools as well.

However, what if he convinced Madara, or hell, Kaguya? I've seen some Naruto x Kaguya stories with this setting and that just seems like horrible writing.

Despite that, you should NOT make your OC like this. If you try to add backstories that interconnect your OC with other characters, what usually happens is that the author doesn't world build enough to address potential plot holes. When this happens, the plot holes are normally ignored in favour of continuing the writing even if multiple people point it out.

 **Incorruptible:** The fuck is Greed? The fuck is lust? Is temptation even a bloody word? This is why. Everyone fucking gives in to some random dark power and the Sue pretends to struggle and saves everyone.

This is pretty straight forward. No matter how much temptation or hatred the character feels. They will ALWAYS go the lawful good path, despite it not being realistic.

 **Tragic Past:** This is how the Sue BECOMES after a tragic past. Turns the absolute fuck up on the Angst and CRY about every fucking thing switch _, then_ run from every person that even says a SYNONYM to whatever the fuck their past was about.

Or, they can be an asshole that literally pushes everyone away, cries about it alone, then wait for the love interest to comfort them conveniently, then 'develops' into a slightly less asshole.

Punk Sues and Jerk Sues are in this category.

Or, SUPER HAPPY GENKI FRIENDSHIP TIME. Super tragic past, but smiles and happy but is determined to be cheerful and optimistic even if she was raped by ten different ISIS commanders as well as their goats.

Naruto and Fairy Tail crossovers tend to have a 'Naruto reveals his past scene' where all the characters sympathize with him like some sort of sad movie and he gets mental hand jobs from every girl, resulting in a harem.

The above will be broken down and discussed.

 **Informed Flaws:** Basically what happens when the author tries too hard to actively avoid Mary Sue traits, but instead they fuck up spectacularly and end up creating another jumbled minced collection of spoiled onions.

These flaws never actually hinder the character or make them look bad, basically, it just increases the edgy meter - like a KLUTZ. JESUS that is an overused piece of shit like fake rain in Korean dramas. That is this trait.

Also random substance abuse such as being a drunk is an informed flaw (ramen anyone?). Then all of a sudden the Mary Sue will COMPLAIN about the awesome fucking power or being too perfect or whatever the fuck their purpose is for no other reason than that the Author just want to be like 'shit my OC is too much of a Sue'.

Nice try dumbass we can all see what you did there.

There are MANY examples of informed flaws, many of them also rest in a grey area. Some of the less incompetent authors would be like 'wait I can't just add a flaw for the sake of having a flaw, I have to change the backstory to match it!' This is okay in my books, because you recognize the fact that your character is too powerful, and is changing him in ways that would tie together with their backstory, not in an add for the sake of adding kind of way.

Honestly I am too lazy to read through a million stories just to find a perfect example of an informed flaw, however, I will keep it in mind so if I see one in a story I just so happen to be reading, then I will edit it in. Also, if you guys have any stories you know off the top of your head, feel free to PM me or put it in reviews.

Another good example of a trait done constantly in OC's is the nervousness around the opposite gender. A harem maker that is picture perfect and wise behind their years somehow cannot speak to the opposite sex without turning into a tampon during the crimson tide. This is 100% an informed flaw. People are not hentai manga shy guys that cannot do shit and somehow get laid by every girl in the classroom. Myself, my friends, and literally everyone I know speak to woman just like they talk to people. Seriously, there is nobody actually 'pretty' enough to make you go 'whoahhh' for a million years and suddenly become unable to think.

Of course, that could just be me, as there might be places or groups of people that literally cannot talk to the opposite sex.

Thanks to **Lorgan Aurelian** for the suggestion on an example.

The character 'Zeke' from **Fairy Tail: A New Day** has an inferiority complex about his power despite being an S-class mage. I personally think this is in a grey area as insecurity is something even the toughest and smartest of people struggle with, so it is perfectly understandable if an S-class mage has some sort of self-esteem issue. However, without proper build up to a character, simply having the insecurity would be considered an informed flaw.

For example, a way to give a backstory that could lead to insecurity is having abusive parents or being surrounded by people that scolded or lectured for every little mistake. That is probably the most common situation that would lead to insecurity even in real life.

 **Sudden Personality Changes:** Why is this a thing? You already established a perfectly Genki happy go lucky OC and they can randomly become a Yandere? Is this some sort of character randomizer that got spammed incorrectly by a horribly programmed bot?

Basically the author wants to write an edgelord but can't do it properly. This basically becomes a character that mistreats everyone around them by punching them randomly but is never called out on it. Other badass characters, no matter how STRONG, will randomly be put in their place by the OC's cancer factory.

The author tries to make the assholery a flaw, but fails spectacularly. That dumb righteous anger - guess what I'm talking about.

The OC is calm, happy, loves hanging with his friends, THEN THEIR NAKAMA IS HURT.

*Dark shadowed eyes* *Low voices* *Whispers* *Random uppity of power auras* *Super Saiyan 17*

OH BOY THAT IS DISGUSTING YALL IN BLOODY TROUBLE NOW. The FUCKING HAPPY GUY GOING TO GO ALL HITLER ON YOUR ASS BECAUSE 'I WON'T FORGIVE THOSE WHO HURT MY FRIENDS'! BETTER RUN YOUR HAIRLESS ASSHOLES STRAIGHT TO NARNIA CAUSE YOU BE ANGERING THE ALL-SLAYER ELEMENTAL GOD WITH THE UZUGAN OR WHATEVER STUPID BLOODLINE.

Anyways, another one is when the OC defies authority figures, instead of being put to fucking Jail like they're supposed to, the authority figure praises them for their boldness and lets them go, then gives them what they want? This is just bullshit writing right there. This needs to be an actual struggle because standing up to authority is not the same as defying. Doing that in real life will get you arrested.

Again, don't remember specific examples because I'm sure I read this so many times everything just blurred together - Naruto council bashing, etc.

Fighting to protect your friends is an admirable quality to have, but this is so ludicrously cliché it becomes stupid and predictable. All the characters become a copy cat Naruto with no real substance.

 **Mary Sue Skills**

 **List of random skills:** Maybe times, the Sue's abilities won't even be defined. As in, what are the limits, how did this magic appear, where did the OC learn it, what spells can they use. If the Sue has like 9001 different magics, chances are 9000 of them won't even play a role in the plot and is literally just there as an ass-pull to yet again curbstomp another fucking 'villain'. It's there just to make the character more 'awesome'.

Again this is a good example of the above definition. The OC just pulls magic out of her ass like left-over toilet paper on a trailer-park redneck.

 **Path of a Wizard from Alvarez** by Warmachine375

 **Better than Canon:** The Sue will ALWAYS be better than the canon character. Regardless of what canon established what can or cannot do or whatever the fuck the laws of physics state in that particular world.

The OC's power will be similar to those of existing characters, only with downsides and limitations removed.

Ex. Dragon slayer without motion sickness.

I know you guys know what I'm talking about and I know you can feel the cyst growing in your throat.

If the characters need a new skill, the OC will pull it straight out of their ass, this is literally every god-mode Sue. Like fuck get that shit out of here and into the waste department.

This could range from an OC taking another character's fights, or basically Naruto shitstomping every single villain in Fairy Tail. I think I read only one Naruto crossover I actually like where his character was based off of 'The Last' where he was a BIT mature. He also doesn't spout that 'RAMEN IS THE FOOD OF THE GODS' cliché that I see in so many crossovers. Seriously Naruto is flanderized to the point where he becomes a ramen-eating friend-protecting casanova in many of the most favourited stories. I have a feeling people write stories where Naruto's character is fucked to shit because they saw the top favourited stories as inspiration and use that as a source. THAT is a BIG BIG no-no.

This is a trait that should not be done unless enough world building is enough to shift the focus.

 **Miracle Lyricist:** Sometimes, the author might want to add another attractive trait to their character. A common skill they add, would be the ability to sing, well.

While there are people who can sing well, as I do know some of my friends who can do so, adding such a trait to an OC just to gain respect or admiration from other characters would be a Sue trait.

 **The Beauty but not the Beast:** The Sue will be so fucking amazingly attractively that the author has the AUDACITY to play it off as a flaw. 'Wow I get like 10 Harems a day that's my biggest problem and I can't choose between that one girl that wants to eat my man juice' Everyone will be crush-blushed into loving the OC.

Canon characters might have the inner thoughts ' **wow he's so cute, no, I can't be thinking this, bad [character name]**. Sound familiar? If you see something similar to the above bolded portion, chances are it's a Mary Sue Harem fic that will have many of the sue traits.

Here is an example of the crush-blushing but with more flowery descriptions.

 **The Prince of Peace** by SpectreOfFire.

I actually liked the story above when it was called 'A Long Journey'; but then it was rewritten as a harem. I haven't been this disappointed since they killed House in the final season.

 **Naruto Uzumaki-Namikaze: The Afterlife** by Egyptian God Phoenix

Now, the above is one of the most popular Naruto x Fairy Tail stories. Indeed, it is god-like, Mary Sue, and has a harem THAT INCLUDES HIS OWN MOTHER.

Back to the example, here is an excerpt from the story itself.

' _The first person that caught her eye was who she assumed was the leader of the group. The man had spiky golden locks, with two jaw length bangs framing his face. He had three whisker marks on each opposing cheek, giving him a more feral yet handsome appearance. His eyes was what drew her to him the most. They were the most intense deep blue eyes she had the pleasure of laying her eyes on. The sheer aura of dominance she felt radiating off him started to make her feel weak in the knees as she began to blush heatedly upon observing him more intently.'_

Just like many other Naruto stories, the above excerpt is victim to adjective spamming prose. Erza is not the type of character that will crush blush at Naruto, and the author made Naruto so beautiful that characters will give birth at the sight of him. We all know what Naruto looks like, and objectively speaking - he is nowhere near hot enough to illicit such reactions. If Naruto was that beautiful, he would have had Sakura on his dick year one.

But back to the story (I will be using it for more examples), any character that can cause a reaction similar to the excerpt is a victim of this Sue trait. It is not realistic and should not be practiced in writing. Your OC IS NOT and SHOULD NOT be a 10/10 instant Adonis.

If you were a regular girl and a celebrity shows up at your house saying hi, would you drop everything you are doing just to be part of his harem? If you answer no, then you understand.

 **Over describing appearances:** What this is, is that there will be ONE massive paragraph describing the Sue in GREAT detail. What he's wearing, what colour, the shape of his face, every little detail that nobody will care about in half a chapter.

Often times, the Sue descriptions will use words such as 'sun-kissed blonde hair, 'delicate flower', 'bluest eyes that's ever been seen', 'sparkling cerulean orbs', 'hair that shimmered like the onyx feathers of a raven' or something equally flowery.

The above excerpt in the previous section is a perfect example of unnecessary appearance descriptions. Read the first few chapters of the story itself and you will see more examples.

This type of description is called 'Purple Prose,' it is a descriptive technique often seen in harem or Sue stories.

If you see a paragraph where the author described the OC with such flowery poetic words but see it no where else - chances are it is a Sue. Then not only that, the clothing will get a massive flowery Shakespearean play on each individual outfit in a magical wardrobe.

 **A New World, The Story of a Lost Shinobi** by Lanky Nathan.

Here is an example excerpt from the story above:

' _Letting his eyes drift across the room, Naruto picked up on another person in the room, this time male. Seeing his hair, he could now count all of two people he had ever seen that had naturally pink locks. He had a strange sleeveless black and gold trimmed, unzipped waistcoat over his shoulders with no visible shirt on underneath and a weird scaley scarf wrapped around his neck. His lowers were covered with the remaining half of his waistcoats the open front revealing short white trousers that were tied off at the knee with black ribbons. He seemed to be abnormally interested in Naruto too if those wide staring eyes were anything to go by.'_

Notice the massive amounts of descriptions that are also bombarded with adjectives? Such an overbearing amount of descriptions could ruin the flow to the story and become extremely redundant.

I will attempt to make the paragraph more concise.

Example excerpt - changed:

' _Naruto gazed at the second man, surprisingly, one with naturally occurring pink locks that draped over his shoulders. A scaled scarf was wrapped around his neck, showing off his bare chest that was partially covered by a knee-lengthed waistcoat. White trousers that were rolled up to the knees with black ribbons was adorned on the man's muscular legs. Allowing his gaze to travel up the gold and black trimmings of the coat, Naruto found himself staring back at the curious widened eyes before him._

When it comes to descriptive pacing, many different modifiers can be used in the same sentence. You don't need to do things such as 'He was wearing this', or 'He was wearing that.' Multiple images can be done in the same sentence to better flow, while at the same time revealing more with less words. Lack of sentence variety points to an inexperienced writer!

Keep in mind that, many of the details from the excerpts above can actually be omitted as they are not that important to the story. A waistcoat generally isn't anything that reaches past the waist, so words that describe length will have to be added.

Another detail such as 'tied up with black ribbons' could be omitted as it is a relatively unimportant detail.

Of course, this could just be the different in style. There are authors that simply like describing someone's attire in absolute detail. My own writing style would simply focus on the main parts, and leave the rest to the reader's imagination.

 **Eye Description:** Now when it comes to eye colour, the Sue will often have unusual eyes.

Keep in mind, blue, green, and amber eyes do occur in real life so they are not traits of a Mary Sue. Ex. many Caucasians have green/blue eyes.

Now, a TRUE Sue eye colour would be something such as: Kaleidoscope Eyes, Mismatched eye colours (Heterochromia Iridium) or just weird fucking colours such as complete silver with gold streaks, pure white, etc.

Keep in mind, all the eye colours above COULD be played well. The author needs to give a good reason why they have these eyes.

Some reasons that would not work are:

\- Being born with them despite no other family members having it

\- Eyes changing colour from gaining a new ability despite no other character in the fandom doing it before

\- Because the author said so

Here are some ways to play off eye colours.

Kaleidoscope Eyes: Maybe the OC has eye magic like the thunder god tribe where their magic changed the nature of their appearance. You could say that they overused this magic so much the eye changed according to the magic running through it, etc.

Violet/Gold/Silver etc. - Somewhere along the family line, there was a mutation through using the magic, or simply that particular eye colour is common in the world the story is based in. This is often a Sue trait if a story is written in a world like ours where such colours are not naturally occurring.

 **Heterochromia Iridium** : For those of you who don't know what this is, basically this is a difference in colouration usually of the iris but can happen to the hair or skin. This is the result of the relative excess or lack of pigment. This could be inherited, or be caused by genetic mosaicism, chimerism, disease, or injury.

So if your OC got stabbed in the fucking eye and it healed a lighter colour - this could be true. However, it wouldn't exactly be attractive as their retinas will be visually deformed from past damage and they would likely lose vision partially at the very least in that eye.

Think of it this way: Erza Scarlet had a fake eye and she STILL doesn't have this trait - search up her picture, they are both brown. Getting a new eye can easily be done in the same colour. Using this excuse of a replacement eye is basically being different for the sake of being different. Is there a reason?

IF the fucking Sue has an eye colour of shit like RAINBOW AMBIENT AND GOLD/SILVER ON THE SAME EYE. And, at no means, have any relevance to the story. Then this should be avoided as if the other interactions/mentions about the eye is for other characters to praise the OC or play it off as an informed flaw. This should not be done as it is simply bad practice.

Not only that, it makes me want to pull my intestines out and dump them into a meat grinder just to drink it all down in ten seconds.

A very good example of Mary Sue eyes would be if the eyes were gold/silver because the OC uses gold/silver dragon slayer magic.

In the world of Fairy Tail, you could say something such as: a family of ice mages had a genetic mutation in their blood - spawning white hair and icy silvery eyes. I could see this happening because it could definitely be possible due to a continuous usage of a single type of magic through multiple generations, causing their descendants to have slight changes in appearance.

BUT, if the mother and father weren't mages, and then the OC is found by a dragon then randomly gets different eyes? That is taking the first class ticket to Nopeland where you will stay at the Nope Inn and eat a big bowl of Nopes.

 _Look Simba, Everything the light touches is our kingdom._

 _But what about that shadowy place?_

 _That's OC Mary Sue territory, you must never go there!_

 _\- Mufasa, The Lion King_

Okay not really, but you get the point.

 **Pets:** When it comes to pets, or some sort of animal partner, Mary Sue characters will often have them. Many of the dragon slayer OC's will have a hatched exceed in which they have a parent-child relationship, although some do have the saviour relationship.

Let's take an example, ignoring the fact what I'm about to say is probably the most cliché shit in Fairy Tail fanfictions; when an author writes an OC dragon slayer, they will often or rather DEFINITELY 100% ALWAYS, give them a fucking exceed partner. Of course, 2nd dragon generation slayers are supposed to be an exception as non of the canon slayers had them. You could argue Cobra had the snake but the snake was actually a person.

Now, what type of situation would you NOT have a character gain some sort of pet/friend/partner or whatever the fuck it's supposed to be called. They're pets, deal with it. A dog can be a pet, family, and a friend all at the same time, no point using different terms to make them seem different.

It doesn't really matter what type of animal they are, although wolves tend to be pretty common (cooler version of a dog?). I've seen phoenixes, dragons, horse, and many more. A animal companion is always something nice to have, as it can add more depth to the story. However, the relationship has to be written correctly otherwise you just get a garbage unnecessary character like a dialogue adding exceed.

Now, keep in mind again, that ALL of these traits can actually be written well. I will reiterate time and time again that Mary Sues are written with the above traits with the intention of increasing the appeal of the OC. Of course, the author will have catastrophic failure IF they do not explain why exactly such a trait exists _other_ than to simple boast the OC.

 **Conclusion:** All of these traits are common mistakes in new writers. Many times these mistakes are ignored simply because many of the fanfiction writers don't know what they are doing themselves. I hope by revealing all these traits with examples, I can help out all the aspiring writers in their own stories! I don't regret bad mouthing certain stories simply because some writers don't fix issues due to author bias.

If you are planning to write a story where the MC exhibits such traits, you have to make sure that it is done WITH reason. If the eyes are magically pink, explain that in the world where the character exists, pink is a naturally occurring colour. Their parents should have it as well if that is the case.

Genetic mutations do happen, but the chances of such make any character using that reason a Sue.

Again, repeated story lines and/or traits CAN be done well. Just remember, and I will say this again and again, WORLD BUILD WORLD BUILD WORLD BUILD BETA BETA BETA PROOF READ PROOF READ. Do those three and your story will become infinitely better!

 **Theme for this chapter:** BETA BETA BETA BETA!

See you guys next time!

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 **Chapter 2 Done! Next Chapter: Mary Sue Traits Part III!**

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 **[ROTLB: The Birth of the Light Bringer]**

 **[ROTLB: Light of Fairies]**

 **[Chef Ramsay]**

 **[A God's Redemption]**

 **[The Nothing Dragon Slayer's Misadventures in Fairy Tail]**

 **Minipa, out!**


	3. CH3 - Mary Sue Traits Part III

**Chapter 3 - Mary Sue Traits Part III**

 **This is part 3 of the Trope Discussion! This discussion will cover the rest of the Mary Sue traits and will include a conclusion of how to avoid one at the bottom!**

 **Fairy Tail specific cancer traits and tropes will be there for discussion number 4!**

 **Make sure you guys join the Trope forums! I want to see some cancer there stat!**

 **Edit: Some of the parts come off as too ranty without actual constructive advice on how the traits can be done well, thanks to the guy that pointed this out. Changes are made to the original below!**

* * *

Now continuing off from the abilities of the Mary Sue, we now have the relationships between the Mary Sue OC's and the canon characters. _Oh boy here we go._

Don't worry, pairings and actual shipping will have it's own section. I pray for all of your safety by then.

 **Love interests and Romance:** Now, a Mary Sue OC is 100% guaranteed to be designed to hook up with another character.

Ex. OCxGray's Ice Dragon Slayer stories.

Normally the Mary Sue will grab the attention of the character right away or nearly right away. (Don't get me started on the Attack on Titan LevixOC trash that completely bombards that section of Fanfiction). There will be almost no obstacles and tension; it's true love, often through a crush blush for male OC's. There is no development and the true love happens right away, they often have horrible lemons written by preteens that obviously know nothing about sexual intercourse.

The love interest will almost 100% be someone else in canon. Ex. OCxErza, OCxLucy, OCxNatsu, OCxGray, etc. This statistic isn't pure 100% due to the few OCxOC stories out there.

Regardless of the pairing, there will not a single issue for the Sue. As the love rival can be 'removed' in other ways. These methods include but are not limited to: killing Juvia for OCxGray, derailing the character into a hateful and jealous person that is easy to break up with, or even just letting the character sacrifice themselves so the Sue can be with their love interest.

This is just horrible writing at it's max. The author wants some self-fulfillment but the character already has a canon pairing! Let's just write one chapter to boot them out of the love triangle and that's that!

Love interests are meant to be written just like romance! The above passage may seem ranty, that's simply because the majority of stories with pairings tend to follow that! All the romance are really just unrealistic expectations of it or even just the idea of romance!

For those of you wanting to write a genuine romance section in your story, you should consider reading famous novels on romance (not Twilight or Fifty Shades of Gray). A good example would be actually be ' **Warm Bodies'** despite some of the shit it has gotten. It's a story about how two people meet each other, fall in love despite their perceived differences and the two characters made each other seem more 'alive'. The love was about the hope they could give each other through love despite the story being a pretty simple love story.

Love has struggles, difficulties, and many challenges that come up! It is important to put these into YOUR pairing or love story when you are writing characters as well! It is also important to keep the paired characters IN character that way.

A good love story is one where the character develops with the love. Whether it is your OC, or the paired character such as Gray. Just how in ' **Warm Bodies** ', that zombie character was changed to become more human like (he gained a beating heart) because of the love.

The relationship has to change the character somehow! Not only that, the love should develop throughout the story! The reason I have so many issues with romance stories simply because they fall in love at first sight, often ending up in some sort of platonic lustful relationship where the characters don't really change from the love!

 **Family Relations:** Often times, the Sue will be related to another canon character.

For example: Erza's sister, Lucy's sister, Natsu's brother, Gray's sister. There are MANY and I mean absolutely NUMEROUS amounts of fanfictions that do this. Here are some examples from before.

 **Fairy Tail: Auberon, King of the Fairies** by FreedonNadd

 **What if** by Zxxphyr

The below story features a dragon slayer without motion sickness as well!

 **Roses** by Colu Lover

 **Twin Dragons of Fairy Tail** by Wolf Rodriguez

Here is a little excerpt from the story above:

 _'Two boys, one aged nine and aged ten, are middle of a big clearing covered in ash and sweat. Both are in battle stances waiting for the other to make a move. The battlefield is littered with craters and trees snapped in two…_

… _the boy revealed as Natsu retorts, "You know as well as I do, I can't move that fast yet, Kai…_

… _Mentally, Natsu is cursing himself for forgetting that he and his olden twin can eat fire_.'

Now I did skip some points in between because it is simply Natsu and Kai sparring. A common technique that authors used to remove certain aspects of world building is an 'adoptive' brother. However, this is simply not the case as the story refers to Kai as Natsu's TWIN brother. Not only that, Natsu was 9 during the excerpt while Kai was 10.

Additionally, this is not to say the numerous amount of Naruto's twin fanfictions that develop into a dark Naruto bash fic too!

Again, despite so many people doing this cliché and end up partnering it with the dragon slayer cliché, it does not mean it cannot be done well. The usage of an overused plotline can still end up being a decent story in the hands of a competent writer.

The OC character can be the children of main characters, or even a villain for some added Angst.

The story below is a story where the OC is the brother of Laxus Dreyar named Kanji. The OC has the lightning dragon slayer lacrima, but split into two halves between him and Laxus.

 **The Long Journey** by Snakebit1995

Now, some characters are pretty much a copy of another character but with marginal differences. These characters often take the fights of other canon characters or 'join' into the fight making the 1v1 into a 2v1.

The story below is an IDS story in which an OC replaces Gray altogether. Where Gray is still an actual character but has no importance to the plot EXCEPT for Galuna.

 **Ice Dragon Slayer** by Avatar-Mage

Personally this is just awfulness dialed up to levels of War of the Worlds. It's like filling up your car with canine urine than successfully starting the engine just to drive to the front seat showing of the Emoji Movie in 3D where the entire audio is replaced with a 2 hour version of Despacito.

Here is an excerpt from the FIRST chapter of the story above, it is also coincidentally, an author's note.

 _' **Hey guys, this will be my first fanfic about my OC becoming an Ice Dragon Slayer and a Fairy Tail mage. I will change the story of Fairy Tail a bit. I'm going to make him a protagonist of the story. I'm also going to replace Gray's position with my OC so Gray won't be the main character anymore, but don't worry he's still a character (I ship Gruvia). I am going to rewrite the entire the story, whoops.**_

 ** _My OC's name is Silver Frediano (I know the name is already canon). His last name is the Italian form of Roman name Frigidianus which means "cold."_**

 ** _He looks like Sting except he has a scar over his right eye and his skin tone is slightly tan (similar to Natsu). He has dark blue hair (like Wendy's) and brown eyes. His Fairy Tail guild mark is on his right pectoral (like Gray's except the color is regular blue). He has three silver hoop earrings, on his left ear, two on his earlobe and one on the upper part of the ear. He doesn't have an exceed because it doesn't fit his character._**

 ** _You'll know his background info in the story._**

 ** _If you would like to draw him, go ahead and post it anywhere. It's best if you post it on DeviantArt. So have fun reading and leave reviews. Tell me about what you think, this is my first fanfic. Please don't make rude comments. If you want to judge, keep it to yourself hoe. Lol, but no seriously…'_**

Why would anyone replace a canon character with their OC just to write the same story? This simply baffles me as I'm sure I wouldn't be able to comprehend the logic. Not only that, since he kept Gray as an actual character, many of his iconic moments will be taken. Since they are taken, I need to ask, is there even a reason to have Gray as a character anymore?

I understand that it is far easier to write when an OC takes a canon characters spot. This is because less world building is necessary to make the story work; but, I will say this now and I will say it later in greater detail. Stories that do this offer no real substance to the canon and makes it seem like a repeat with different spells names and additional dialogue.

A setting where the OC replaces a character altogether CAN be done well through good writing, character development, no unnecessary Sue traits, etc. The first eight things I have listed should be avoided UNLESS, proper world building is done for the character.

 **Celestial Prince** by Elena Parker

Frankly, I quite enjoyed this story. The story is a self-insert where Lucy is replaced by a male version of herself, but is an OC. I quite liked the pacing, as well as the backstory. The author was able to write the innocent years quite well, and was able to make many ripples to the story despite the OC being originally being reluctant to rewrite canon.

In this story, the decision to remove Lucy altogether was probably the best one. If the OC was indeed born as Lucy's twin brother, it would have likely became fatalist and the OC would become a dialogue adder.

 **Changing Personalities:** Even with canon character's previously already established personalities. They WILL change in reaction of the Sue. Proud, arrogant, stubborn chads will all of a sudden acknowledge that the Sue is superior. Reckless people will listen to their advice. Competent characters will become monkeys that require the Sues help and mild-mannered people the author doesn't like will turn evil and insult her.

A good example of this is the crush-blushing Erza in the Naruto crossover I have mentioned in the previous discussion.

Another example would be Lucy leaving Lisanna stories in which Lisanna changes into a conniving bitch just to give scorn to Lucy.

Seriously, Lisanna is a nice girl that would be friends, no doubt, with Lucy. Yet she is written as a bitch? This is just the horrible love interest ridding bullshit that teenage girls come up with. Can't write for shit? Put some OOC! That solves the issue.

This goes into the territory of bash-fics in which we will have a separate section later.

When it comes to OOCness for the sake of the OC or MC, it is often times, a Sue. This is honestly something you want to avoid, but, if you are doing this for the sake of a plot point and not just self-fulfillment, then perhaps I could be of help with these suggestions.

If your OC is on the good side, then there are times where the OC could redeem villain characters faster than they usually are in canon or villains that weren't redeemed at all.

Ex. You could write a story where Zancrow joins Fairy Tail. Personally he seems like a blindly loyal Zealot to Hades and could actually be reformed. If Ultear could be reformed from that Zeref madness maybe the other Grimoire Heart mages could as well.

Remember, if you change the personalities of characters because of your OC, it MUST have pacing and development. Instant 180's of characters because of your OC is complete Sue. No matter what it is, BALANCE MUST BE ACHIEVED. An OC could earn the respect of an otherwise stubborn character, gaining a soft spot, of the OC could constantly encourage a shy girl to become more confident through repetition.

All of this CAN work, all just needs to be eased into it.

 **Perfect Judge of Character:** The Sue will be right about everyone and essentially figure out the natures of all allies and villains and is instantly able to figure who is an ally and who is a backstabber.

If all the canon characters don't believe this one character, the OC will make the decision to trust him/her and that is only because the author already knows beforehand and simply writes it in a way that the OC will trust them.

I've seen many stories where OC's would interact with Gajeel or Juvia this way - no specific names come to mind so help me out here :)

Now, this quality can work in a lesser form. Instead of being a perfect judge of character, the OC could be a BETTER judge of character. Maybe someone with magic that could see emotions/intentions, or have magic where they can get a general idea of moral alignment, or even someone who worked as an interrogator and has a decade of experience when it comes to knowing people.

If there is no prior indication, the OC should not perfectly judge other people, in ANY circumstance. The only way that can happen if they were some sort of god and could peer into the souls of lesser beings.

 **Icelynn Lace: Ice Fire Dragon Slayer** by Bugg18

Excerpt away! Here:

 _'Sighing heavily, Makarov looked at me with confusion his face, then shock as I gently bopped Juvia over her head. All Juvia could do when I did this, was blink up at me._

 _"That apology isn't yours to give silly… In fact, I was expecting you to ask about that iron headed dragon slayer soon or later." I said, as I thought back to the way Gajeel's eye were when he was about to finish me off, and the way they looked after the fight was over with._

 _"You did?" Juvia asked, as Makarov turned to look out the window with a smirk on his face. So, he had noticed it too huh…_

 _"When we fought the second time, I could see it in his eyes. He hated himself for what he was doing, but something else was over powering it. When we were told that Jose had used mind magic on him, my suspicions were confirmed." I said, as I sat back down in the empty chair. "I just hope that you understand that joining this guild won't be easy for him… With everything he's done, the other members won't take kindly to him. Later on, some might, but who knows…"_

Notice in this excerpt, the OC has fought Gajeel and was losing to him; however, she was able to 'tell' that he did not enjoy it despite Gajeel having fun beating Lucy up during the Phantom Lord arc. This is an example of the perfect judge of character.

Not only that, she says 'my suspicions were confirmed'. This phrase is often used in perfect judge characters as anything above that, would be telepathy. The ability to figure out a person without prior knowledge is a VERY common Mary Sue trait. This often leads to forgiveness section in which the OC will hold no hard feelings. This tactic is another way to boast the OC, making them look better. The reason why authors can do this is because they have prior knowledge of canon, therefore their characters CAN know just as much as the author, but the words 'suspected', or 'figured' are often use to avoid aspects of omniscience.

Despite the above, the story actually has decent grammar compared to the other works of subpar garbage that I had the displeasure of reading.

If you find your OC having this quality, dial it back a bit! Always remember to never go off to the extreme and find your balance somewhere in the center!

 **Wise Beyond their Years:** This is a extremely common trait of OC stories - specifically for people trying to write kids while they themselves are older.

This is a relatively difficult area to improve on because relating to a character similar to yourself is far different than relating to someone far younger than you.

Authors will have to simplify their own thought processes and constantly ask themselves, can a 12 year-old figure this out? Can the same kid adapt this kind of philosophy regardless of what they have been through?

A common trait among all kids is that they are impatient, some kids are more well behaved when they don't get what they want but some certainly will throw tantrums. When things don't go a 10 year-old's way, chances are that they would NOT stay calm and collected to think their way through. Most people 20+ don't even do this, so why should a random dragon slayer half their age do so? Unless of course, they are a Sue and is a super genius philosopher at the age of eight despite being raised alone in the forest by a dragon with fuck all for actual life experience.

There are far too many examples of this and many are hard to pick out unless being read by Fanfiction Veterans (you will know by their reviews of these stories)

For all the stories listed below, read the internal dialogue and the actual dialogue of the OC while keeping in mind their ages. Then, see if that is something a realistic child of their age would think/say or even figure out.

 **Twin Dragons of Fairy Tail** by Wolf Rodriguez

 **Fairy Tail's Black Dragon** by Acnologia Prime

Okay, I will not list any more. I am filtering out all the OC stories and I would say 8/10 are varying degrees of being Wise beyond their years.

This shouldn't really be a plot point that has to be written. Most if not all stories doing this have their OC's end up becoming an overly powerful or Mary Sue. HOWEVER, I can be of aid in making people that are let's say, more INTELLIGENCE based. Remember, wisdom and intelligence are different! Someone who is able to solve a Rubik's cube in 6 seconds might not know how to deal with people.

The issue with writing smarter OC's is people tend to think wisdom and intelligence are used interchangeably. This is not true at all. While it is okay to make your OC a kid genius (there are indeed kids out there that are 12 in universities - doesn't mean they are wise or have a lot of life experience), it is important to balance it! The genius OC could be a naïve 10 year old that is capable of figuring out runes or magic but unable to understand social cues or subtle hints. Perhaps even an OC that exclusively uses seals like the seal masters in Naruto?

It is possible to make an OC that is both super intelligent, and balanced at the same time. Just make sure to ask those OC questions!

What are my OC's abilities, what is the power scaling, what is the OC's personality, etc.

 **Brat behind their years:** Thanks for a person to pointing this out to me, this will be posted on the next discussion as well for the people that have read the chapter before I added this part.

What this is, is the opposite of Wise beyond their ears. This occurs when you have young authors, let's say 12, writing a 20 year old OC and making them brattier than usual. Keep in mind that is it possible for young authors to make Mary Sue OC's as well. This is because the author is writing 20 year-olds based on their own understanding of older characters!

I can't really say for sure what story there are that exhibits this, but if any of you find one, be sure to let me know!

If you are a 12-14 year old author looking to write an OC almost twice their age. The easiest way I can think of for you to do so is either get a beta or by reading enough books to gain the experience needed. Being someone so young is bound to have different thought processes when compared to older people.

Now, the next portion of this discussion is geared towards the story elements of a Mary Sue fanfiction. Some of these traits will also have their own sections as an expansion. 10 Reviews to get the expansion and 3 reviews for DLC ;) Okay no, microtransactions is the bane of my existence as all the bloody games I play now have loot boxes for rich Chinese kids that are straight dogshit at the game and are forced onto my team for 'balancing' purposes.

 **Spotlight Stealing:** The Mary Sue OC will be a spotlight-stealing squad. The entire story pretty much centers around the OC and many times, the OC simply steals the fights from other characters. This is a VERY big trait in almost all OC stories simply because the writers aren't imaginative enough to change canon.

Remember the joke I made about Ice Dragon Slayers 2v1 Erigor with Natsu against Eisenwald? Well, I wished that was just a joke.

The story below is about an Ice Dragon Slayer that joins the guild. Then in the Eisenwald arc…they 2v1 Erigor. I didn't read the rest of the story because I knew that would have been astronomical levels of cringe that I simply didn't want to put myself through - you know, for health reasons.

 **A Fairy's New Wings** by Dj Wolfenstein

Here is a little excerpt from the above story:

 _'Natsu! Lucy's been captured! I'm going after her! Take care of these creeps!" Ray had Falu on his shoulder as he ran._

 _"Go get her Ray! I believe in you!" Natsu covered Ray as he ran.'_

For those of you wanting to know what happens after, read chapter 12 and 13 of the story. The author took Natsu's fight with Gajeel and made him say 'I believe in you' despite Natsu cutting in when Elfman tried to fight him. That is a massive red flag right there.

 **The Prince of Peace** by SpectreOfFire.

Both of those stories are victims of spot-light stealing. In which the OC will take the fight (often Iconic) of another canon character. The second story is written far better than the first, but it involves a Mary Sue OC x Harem so I would prefer to not read it again.

Some of you might be thinking, why is spotlight stealing so bad? It is not story breaking per say, but is a rather annoying trope that can ruin the story for many readers. Canon is canon for a reason. If you add in a new character, chances are, you will have to change some things for it to fit your character. You shouldn't just take scenes or fights from other characters simply because you are too lazy to write new fights yourself.

Doing so undermines canon and the achievements of other canon characters and simply does the series, the characters, AND your own story a disservice. Not only does spotlight stealing often becomes fatalist, it takes away the struggles or simply repeats it with different dialogue and spell names.

I personally would not suggesting doing this at all, especially with the iconic fights.

To get around this if you are having trouble figuring out fights for your OC.

You could always let's say make the guild master of Eisenwald arc present because he broke out of jail! He could be the same strength as Erigor or slightly weaker (Gildarts can fuck Makarov up in one punch IMO), then they would make a good fight with your character without taking away Natsu's battle!

Spot light stealing just shouldn't be done. An alternative to putting the focus on your own character is world building, adding extra arcs, or for some people, making the enemies stronger so you can still get the struggle. Of course, there are better ways to do this than just adding one random mage just to fight them.

 **Unbound:** Whatever rules of Universe that the OC is written in, they will not be bound. There will be a relatively unimaginative explanation of why it's possible, but no other additions to explain why the laws of physics could be broken just for their sakes. A good example will be having fifteen different magics at the age of 10 despite learning new magics take far longer.

This can mean developing a plot line that would require breaking the laws set by canon just to make it possible.

Ex. Acnologia dragon slayer stories.

It is important to follow the laws of physics or rules set by canon itself. Otherwise the story will become contradictory in the plot line and end up making your character a Mary Sue. There are ways to get around this, is if you want your character to have more magics, or you would like to change a certain aspect with the Fairy Tail world. One way to do this, is to simply make changes that will effect ALL characters.

Ex. You could scale up the powers of other canonical characters that way your OC's abilities doesn't seem some kind of limit-breaker Goku Kaioken x 100 Super Saiyan God 13.

 **Self-Contradiction:** Now, as the author decides to flashback more waste from a swine, the cacophonical symphony of mashed up backstories begin to contradict each other. As in questions such as: how can these things happen simultaneously, or what is the actual timeline in which this could take place? How is this even possible? Wasn't this stated that it COULDN'T happen a couple chapters ago?

Remember when the author of the twin dragons story added a twin brother for Natsu? Then he mentions that the OC twin is one year older. This is NOT an open debate; it is an obvious error on the author's part. Fanfiction writers are not some sort of grand scheme planners that randomly add ambiguous statements. Anything that seems weird or out of place dropped with a comment on the lines of 'I meant to do that as a surprise for the readers,' it is an obvious shit fix and should not be taken seriously. These writers are just unwilling to accept they made a mistake. If you are an author guilty of what I said above, admit your fault, fix it, and move on.

I myself am guilty of this in my own work. If I were to leave it as it is and refuse to fix it, that would make me a massive hypocrite.

Self-contradiction is actually more of a flaw than a trope. This happens when world building is not done enough in stories and end up contradicting with other canon plot points or even plots set up by the author themselves. This often leads to continuity issues or ignored aspects of the story that was never addressed.

Ex. An OC with the power to fly but in another scene they fall off despite the author never specifically saying the OC could not fly at that time. This would bring up the questions - 'Hey why didn't he just fly out?' The author could have fixed this plot hole by adding a line saying 'his magic was too depleted to fly,' or showing that the OC had no magic due to a fight or some other challenge.

Many times, authors might come up with a bullshit explanation like 'he's too tired,' NOT as a line in the story but as a review reply despite never showing or explaining it well enough. I personally don't like people doing this because it just shows they are too lazy to make amendments to their own work, then simply passing it off as part of their already created grand plan. I was guilty of this in my Madara story when someone asked me if Madara was using his gravity magic to train; at the time, I thought I did mention it so I simply replied to the reader that he was. However, when I reread that particular chapter, I noticed there was no clear indication he was making himself heavier, so I rectified it by adding a couple new lines.

Another example of me following my own advice is when someone pointed out in the reviews that these trope discussions were filled with grammatical errors, so I went back and began rereading everything, hoping to catch most if not all of them. I'm sure I will miss some harder to spot errors such as slight spelling or missing punctuation, but I hopefully fixed the errors that made the chapters confusing to read.

If you yourself has unresolved plot holes, the way to solve this is to WORLD FUCKING BUILD. I will say those words a billion times until everyone gets it. Creating the world around the OC and how the OC will interact is one of the most sure-fire ways to solve many of these Mary Sue traits. Getting a beta to look at the world building notes so they can spot inconsistencies is an even better idea - I do this myself. Beta readers are able to ask questions that you NEED to address before actually writing a particular arc or plot line.

 **The Chosen One:** This is another example of spotlight stealing; but, with the author constantly trying to avoid it. This means the Mary Sue will probably share the position with Natsu, as in, share in their fights, do all the work and let Natsu get the final hit and then shouting 'DO IT NATSU' or something like that.

I can't think of any Fairy Tail stories out of the bat, but I remember reading this where the OC son of Shanks SHARES the captain position of Luffy. Seriously, can anyone that is a masterful one piece fan explain if this is possible?

 **Tortured Soul** by Snakebit1995

Some stories like this is because they are actively avoided a fatalist fic. However, this presents another set of problems. Even if Natsu ends up dealing the final shot to let's say, Erigor. If your OC is there, it undermines Natsu's own power. While true, he struggled against Erigor. If someone is there with him, wouldn't he beat Erigor with far more ease?

If you are planning to scale up the power of the villains so it can work with your OC, then that would be ruining the iconic fights that some characters have if your OC is always there providing extra dialogue. If you DID completely write a story where the OC takes a supporting role, it might not become as interesting simply because there is nothing new. Your character might be balanced but the plot simply doesn't change.

 **A Fairy's New Wings** by Dj Wolfenstein

Excerpt away!

 _'They made it outside Ray looked to Natsu leaving with Happy so Ray and Falu followed and both cats sprouted wings and began flying to stop Erigor._

 _"Natsu let's kick his ass together!" Ray and Natsu slammed into Erigor._

 _The three now stood on the tracks since Happy and Falu were too tired to fly anymore. Ray and Natsu needed to work together if they were gonna stop Erigor.'_

Notice how in the excerpt that the author had the OC join against the fight against Erigor?

In the final parts of the excerpt, the author mentioned that BOTH Natsu and the OC had to fight to stop Erigor. This is undermining Natsu's own worth and is doing a disservice to the character.

While Erigor was indeed strong, Natsu was able to defeat him pretty easily despite him falling off the tracks. The OC's presence there denounces Natsu's own strength while it also ruins the mood and struggle. Any forced tension or struggle will simply become nonsensical and self-contradictory to previously established plot points.

This is not necessarily a story breaking or bad thing. UNLESS you do it to the point equal to the story above. Consequently, doing so WILL bore or discourage your readers simply because it offers no real substance or 'flare' to the story.

 **Fatalist Sues:** Now a fatalist fic is surprisingly common when it comes to OC stories. Often times, the author likes the canon story line, meaning that they would not want any changes in it. Despite this, they add an OC anyway, in which the rippling effects would have supposed to already have taken place.

The fatalist portion means that no matter WHAT, the canon story line will NOT change. Everything will happen as it is. This type of Sue is actually common in EVERY fandom. The same type of inexperienced authors and the hanky-doodle garbage they call a story infests all franchises.

An easy way to tell what type of story has this element is for stories to have chapter titles that indicate each and every arc of the canon. Etc. Joining Fairy Tail, Duke Everlue, Eisenwald Part 1, etc. These stories will often have the OC just providing some extra dialogue but otherwise not changing anything in canon. Even worse, they do 'The Chosen One' spot light stealing. In which they participate in fights, only to have the same result if they were not there in the first place.

ALSO DREADED WAVE ARC in Naruto fanfics - this makes me skip the wave arc on every single fucking story.

This brings us to the question, why bother writing the exact same story line just with your OC? This is a complete pointless type of story as nothing ever changes. The only way to make it worse is to go all out spot light stealing and have the OC actually take the fights all the way from other canon characters. If you're going to not change anything anyway might as well make it a profession and become a Tumblr Feminist.

The story below is a fatalist fic in which despite the extra arcs/scenes and changes, the canon story line stays the same. The story has good structure, good grammar, and good pacing. It's simply an example of a Fatalist element.

 **Fairy Tail Remastered** by 1 Fairy

Keep in mind, while it is not necessarily bad for a story to be 'fatalist', it can be extremely boring to read. No matter how likable you make your character, to simply retell canon with someone else added isn't exactly a great reading experience.

I can't exactly give an excerpt as you have to read the entire story to realize that the whole story barely made any changes to canon. It simply adds new spells and dialogue. This story is a better example as the author added some extra arcs to make it NOT a complete copy of canon.

Now, the fact that so many OC stories are fatalist is something I find quite jarring. Why bother writing a story if it's the same story with an OC? You should be telling your character's story, not tell another story with an OC dumped right into it. It simply doesn't make sense why anyone would want to spend countless hours just to write the same story line.

Now, the reason why fatalist fics are quite jarring simply because they offer no real substance. Often times, a MC will become god-like but end up going through the plot as if it was never there in the first place. This is apparent in stronger Natsu stories or Rinnegan Naruto stories.

This actually ties into self-insert fanfiction as despite the MC changing many things, nothing actually changes.

I really don't see why people who WANT to write a fatalist story unless they are nihilistic. If they truly want to write one, and the fact their story is fatalist isn't because of lack of forethought or world building skill, then here are some ways you can do it. A fatalist story COULD have multiple sad moments in which the MC tries so hard to prevent let's say, a character death - but ends up achieving nothing. This could affect the OC in a way making them think that their changes are inconsequential. Then the OC could develop in a way where they realize just what exactly they were doing wrong when they tried to change things. Then they could become stronger and better prepared for when they try again!

This is just an example story in which where the fatalist element itself IS the plot. There are probably many other plots that could be done as fatalist INTENTIONALLY. Although I would say the setting would be quite unpopular, as nothing really changes in the long run. However, if you pull off the emotional scenes, well, it could definitely work!

 **Reformations:** Ever read those self-insert fics where the character uses their knowledge of the canon to try and change every tragic past? Well this is it. The perfect golden spirit that easily reforms an entire group of people of their negative qualities - often through the power of love and friendship and Nakamaism. This also ties into the black hole Sue as the character will then drag every single character along with their Mary Sue.

Honestly, the thing I despise about this is because, tragic pasts define their character! Just like how in real life, the horrid pasts and experiences we have is what define us. Someone going in to change every person in the story into the second coming of the care bears is just…wrong.

Now, this story is summarized as a fix-it fic. Basically, the self-insert OC goes and changes everything that made the character who they are. All for the purpose of making every sunshine and rainbows.

 **Ripples** by The real narnia

 **My Wish** by FlamingB1rd

The advice on writing this sort of reformation would be in a later discussion through the talk about fix fics specifically.

 **Human Hybrids:** Now, here's a popular one. The OC might be some sort of half-human or even just another creature in human form. This is literally just there for more angst.

Ever read those stories with an OC secretly being some sort of demon and then becoming a precursor to a badly written OCxMira? Yeah me too.

In fact, despite the OC being demon, most of the time, the demon part would just be there to add angst and informed flaws as well as to give more abilities to the OC.

Not only that, the 'demon' or beast part will be there to get sympathy from all the other characters.

The below story had just that. Demon for angst and extra Sueish abilities.

 **Lost Life** by EnergyMageFrea

Characters that relate to this might also have special snowflake syndrome. Now keep in mind there are multiple types of this and for the most part, they will have extremely low self-worth and angsty. Then the other characters will pump up the lube and give out mental handjobs. Basically, that trait or backstory making the OC a different race by blood will say something like this.

Example Excerpt of ass-pulling go!

 _I knew it. I was a demon, a monster of darkness. How could anyone possibly tolerate my presence? I couldn't help but to be born this way! It wasn't my fault, I can't control it!_

 _Before I knew it, I was running into the forests outside the city, tears waterfalling from my eyes to the ground below._

 _"Kai!" A voice shouted from behind me._

 _I turned back to see the familiar white-haired barmaid that I had known for weeks. I don't deserve her attention. I don't deserve, anything._

 _Why can't she just leave me alone to suffer…_

See that level of cringe? Jesus bloody Christ just writing that portion made me vomit so hard I need to pump my entire digestive system with an industrial vacuum cleaner.

If you ever read something like this, chances are they have these traits. Keep in mind again, that just because characters have these traits, it doesn't mean they are bad. It's all about the presentation and the skill of the author.

If you are thinking of writing a story such as this, ask yourself these questions. Is there a point to this attribute? Does the demon part play a part to the plot? Is he the son of some demon of destruction maybe that he will have to fight eventually? Is he going to use the demon part to gain sympathy?

While this could be done WELL, being a half human hybrid should not be done if the only reasons are to bolster the OC or to gain sympathy from other characters - this is VERY common in Naruto crossovers.

 **Presentation of Appearance:** The first part of presentation brings us back to the descriptive qualities of the OC. Meaning, the author has a very fixed idea of exactly what the OC looks like and considers it vitally important to the plot that the reader knows exactly what they look like.

What they are wearing, what sort of outfits they have, how many freckles, birthmarks, tattoos, and don't get me started on the bloody hair colour and again WHAT THE FUCK THEY'RE WEARING.

Then, the description itself would be EXTREMELY flowery, fetishized Prose Prose. What is Purple Prose exactly? It's a way of writing that is far too elaborate or ornate. This is exactly what happens when a 13 year old discovers the website called 'Thesaurus' then indulges in acute malapropism which then becomes an entire story.

I actually had one of my first beta readers all the way back then correct my grammar and then rewrite it in purple prose. I realized it later and had to rewrite the story.

Here is a little example excerpt I pulled out of my ass:

 _The sun shone onto Kai's shimmering golden hair. Bright cerulean orbs faced the tranquil landscapes as a light-brown cape billowed in the wind. A single lean, muscular arm lifted up to provide shade, causing a slight ripple in the lapels of the suit that perfectly fit his form. A cloud of dust lifted into the air as raven leather boots moved step by step in harmony with the rise and fall of his chest._

See how much AIDS it is just to read that thing? If you are an author that find yourself writing like that for every bloody description, you should stop. Flowery descriptions like this belong in a poem, not in a multi-chaptered story. If you put this in every chapter and in every description, it will get extremely annoying to read fast.

The excerpt might 'seem' dynamic' because the beginnings of every sentence is a different word (trust me that does not make it good writing), it is still a completely unnecessary paragraph to describe things that the readers don't give a shit about as it has no importance to the plot.

Here is the same scene but with a more straight to the point description.

Example Excerpt - Fixed:

 _Despite the heat of the sun, Kai wore a simple traveller's suit with a brown cloak tied around his neck. As he travelled towards the city, he lifted an arm to provide some shade. Keeping his eyes focused on his destination, he continued on the forest path._

See how simple that was? It's straight to the point without being unnecessarily descriptive. While it is true indeed you want to make your characters more dynamic. It is important to balance it with pacing as paragraphs upon paragraphs of describing every bloody flinch the OC does will become extremely boring and simply irritate the readers.

Nobody gives a shit what cape the character is wearing unless it's important to the story.

Another thing to avoid is ADJECTIVE SPAMMING. Yes that is such a fucking common trope when describing Mary Sues. You want to describe someone's hair? Time for another excerpt!

Excerpt - Seriously I lose millions of brain cells every time I write one of these you guys better appreciate what I'm doing:

 _Her long, wavy aquamarine hair curled down her slim, delicate shoulders. A slim, dexterous hand raised to brush the curly teal locks away, revealing her mesmerizing yet innocent evergreen eyes. The soft steps taken by her lean, toned legs rustled the simple, blue jeans travelling halfway down her shins._

Oh my god. This excerpt explains itself. Someone please put me out of my misery. Also if you do this while describing your OC OR FOR FUCKS SAKE, NARUTO, please do us all a favour and dump gasoline on your computer then run to the nearest forest fire with it in your hands.

 **Naruto Uzumaki: The Shinobi Mage** by Rifat

Here is an excerpt from an actual story describing Naruto's appearance.

 _'His body has a lean athletic build and the muscles on his body are toned to perfection. His hair has grown quite a bit. His sun kissed, spiky blonde hair remained as unkempt as ever. Two large bangs framed the sides of his face as another portion which covered his forehead would his left eye. Sometimes, that part would remain in the middle as well. His azure blue eyes have regained some of the original shine he had in his childhood, but there are momentary lapse when the dull shade returns.'_

For the excerpt above, it is a combination of adjective spamming, unnecessary appearance descriptions, and purple prose. Although it is not as flowery as the above excerpts, that is often because the author's of the story is simply not skilled enough - technical wise - to actually have sentence variety.

The reason why you do this is because continuous adjective usage will make those adjectives themselves into platitude. Descriptions are meant to be concise. Less is more. If you don't understand that phrase, it means using so much becomes spam and annoying! You DON'T need 200 words to describe what Naruto looks like. You should also consider a maximum of TWO adjectives per noun! Ideally, use one per noun then flow to other descriptors in another sentence.

 **Unbalanced Writing:** Now, for parts of the story that is describing the OC, the author will write that elongated dog penis that was the example excerpt, and for the other parts of the story, the author might even have the audacity to not put in dialogue!

Basically, the OC author might simply even just make it occur off-screen even if it is an important plot point. This is all simply because the author does not want to write it.

What often happens is that the author will just 'narrate' what happens instead of actually showing it with dialogue and dynamic movements of the characters.

Example Excerpt:

 _Lucy was quite happy to finally be in the guild, she was asked by the master where she wanted her guild emblem and in what colour. Of course, she chose pink and she wanted it on the back of her hand. Despite her excited state, the pink-haired dragon slayer did not show interest at all. To her additional irk, he called her by the name 'Luigi'! That was not even her name!_

Do you want to drink bleach yet? Because imagine that Lucy joining Fairy Tail scene narrated like that. There are many authors that narrate potentially important scenes all because they are too lazy or don't like the scene enough to write it out properly.

If you are too lazy to write your story, then why should readers read it? Especially if they are expecting more content from an otherwise narrated section. Balance must be achieved when it comes to conciseness in descriptions, and to necessary dialogue.

The only time I will accept this is when something goes EXACTLY the same as canon. Now, the excerpt might actually not be a good example because it is exactly what happened in canon. However, if you wrote an OC in and decided to skip all the dialogue, then that is a problem.

 **Investment:** The final section of the Mary Sue discussion is just how 'invested' the author is at the Mary Sue OC or the story itself. Usually, the author puts all the effort on writing the Sue at the expense of all others, making the story seem bland and uninteresting.

A VERY big sign of a horrible Mary Sue story is the reaction of the author when it comes to criticism.

Stories with the words 'Don't like Don't Read', 'No Flame', 'Please Give my story a Try', 'This is my first story' are often Mary Sue indicators, here's why.

Don't like don't read (DLDR for short): This type of summary often points to authors that have been criticized by other people. Whether this is grammar, Mary Sue traits, bad writing in general, it doesn't matter. All that matters is the author is in a deluded state where they think that their story is the best work of art that has ever been posted. Anyone who says otherwise is wrong.

No Flame: This is the same as the above. They were criticized and they simply put it up to practically 'beg' for no 'flame' reviews. Often times, these 'flames' are actually constructive advice that point out flaws in the story.

I understand sometimes people will just say 'shit story' with no context whatsoever; but, if someone puts a long review, potentially hours of their time reading your story just to help you improve, then it is not a reason to shout back and spam 'No Flame'.

Please give my story a try: This sort of summary is often someone who just started writing their story. They aren't getting as much traffic as they thought they were going to and instead put it in their summaries to try and 'beg' readers to click their story.

Of course, I just skip that story because I assume it's the same as a rotten potato.

The above definitions will be expanded on the discussion that will cover summaries in general.

This is my first story: Why would anyone put this? Are authors trying to get pity from the readers? This is an automatic sign that tells me exactly what I need to know to not read this story.

For those of you that are starting to write a story, you should consider getting betas, learning when and when not to use these traits, and definitely not put any of those phrases in your story summary.

Of course, if MANY people put in reviews for let's say, a grammar issue with a story. The author would probably not fix it if they are getting reviews. This is simply because a large portion of the fanfiction website is not capable of writing properly. Which means the majority would simply ignore common mistakes. The reason why I want people to read this discussion is so people WILL know better and writers won't have reviews saying 'MOARRRR' if their grammar is inadequate.

 **How to avoid a Mary Sue:** Now with the 10,000+ words explaining just what traits are Mary Sue. I will conclude that you, as an author, should not actively try to avoid every single trait that I have put in the discussions.

However, spamming these traits for the sole purpose to flaunt the character's greatness is a huge no-no. If your story and character calls for certain traits to be used, whether it is naming, tragic pasts, or even certain physical characteristics, then go ahead. Any of these traits can be pulled off decently with balance.

Betas are also a good help. Remember, even if you know all these traits, you might still be a victim of bias! Basically, a part of you knows the character you created is a bit on the Sue side, but because it is your own creation, you feel that it is justified given the context of the story.

A beta without that bias could point out potential flaws, ask you questions such as 'why does this happen?', 'why does it need to be like this?' Keep in mind that if you decide you want your OC to have green hair simply because you want to have green hair and hell, you have green hair in real life, then it wouldn't be a big issue unless you make all the characters praise and boast the OC.

Some of these traits might actually ENHANCE the quality of your story if used correctly (not all of them) - you will know which ones. For example, a less flowery description than purple prose could work if your OC is in a tranquil forest; where the inner mood and the pacing of the section could call for some more flowery text. However, if your OC was just walking down the road to Fairy Tail? Then, that should be concise in its descriptions and written with the plot as its priority.

 **How to avoid reading a Mary Sue Fic:** If you have read all the traits from Trope discussion I to III, then you can be considered to be relatively well versed with all the different Sue tropes. It will become increasingly easier to see the signs and avoid reading as well as writing Sue fiction.

It will become easier through trial and error, experience, as well as constant study of different fanfics. Soon, you will know the balance of each and every trait in your story!

Note: Some of you might be wondering why I've been using the same stories as my examples. This is because I have just read them recently and what happens is still fresh in my mind. I can't exactly remember every little detail of every fanfiction I have ever read, especially the ones a year back. However, if you can think of something that relates to it, then please put it down in reviews.

 **Conclusion:** For those of you still wondering how to actually write the story properly without over using these traits. I will be doing a section on OC help in regards to the question you have to ask to make an OC relatable, believable, and BALANCED.

For most people, writing Naruto is the same as writing an OC. Therefore, I will be parting the same wisdom on you. You should not change his character for the sake of the story without proper build up! Naruto has so many horrible tropes and pet peeves that is done to the bone! Sakura, Sasuke, Council bashing! Mary Sue traits out of the fucking factory discount sales! Everything in between!

As in no omni-slayer all reality god. The last part of the trope discussions is still a ways away, but keep reading and you will be able to write your own OC fanfiction in no time!

Note: All of you guys better appreciate what I'm doing because writing and reading those excerpts makes me curl up in a fetal position so I can be unborn.

 **Theme for this Chapter:** BALANCE MUST BE RESTORED.

See you guys next discussion!

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 **Chapter 3 Done! Next Chapter: Common AU's!**

 **This is it for Mary Sue discussion! Next time we will continue with common tropes, story lines such as High School AU, College AU, Coffee shop AU, Self inserts, and more! There are actually quite a lot more Sues but really they are mainly subcategories of the ones I have already spoke about and really doesn't need their own section.**

 **Make sure you guys check out my other stories!**

 **Read my profile and join my Trope discussion forums!**

 **[ROTLB: The Birth of the Light Bringer]**

 **[ROTLB: Light of Fairies]**

 **[Chef Ramsay]**

 **[A God's Redemption]**

 **[The Nothing Dragon Slayer's Misadventures in Fairy Tail]**

 **Minipa, out!**


	4. CH4 - Alternate Universes

**Chapter 4 - Alternate Universes**

 **In this discussion, we will began to cover the different types of AU's that plague the favourite fics!**

 **Make sure you guys join the Trope forums! I want to see some cancer there stat!**

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 **Guest** : Hey you want to talk about oc-mary sue check out this shit show story the Elemental Saiyan God Shinobi Rewrite by Mystic 6 tailed Naruto.

 **Guest - Reply:** I might do a case study on that story after my general terms are finished. On another note, just reading the title and author name makes me want to make toast while I'm in the bathtub.

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Before we begin, I will note that the AU's below will be ones that can easily be classified as alternate universe. Although harem fics and OC fics are all technically alternate universe, they will not be classified completely as that will have a section in the next discussion.

Also, there are actually quite a lot of AU's out there; I will be doing the ones that seem to be more prevalent in the Fairy Tail section of fanfiction.

I won't be doing any excerpts for this portion as I can't exactly put an entire story in this chapter.

Anyways, let's begin!

* * *

We will first begin with what I like to call the 'Big 3' of Fairy Tail AU's. High School AU's, College AU's, and Band AU's.

 **High School AU's:** The fabled High School AU. The bane of all fandoms whether it's anime, TV, movies, or even games. The idea of putting characters meant to be in a fictional setting into a common high school setting, where stereotypical positions such as the Emo, Jock, Shy Girl, Nerd, etc., are all used.

Typically, the High School AU is written by authors in high school (Ex. 16 year-old girls). They write the canonical characters into a setting that reflects their own life. Now, every high school AU will probably be written SLIGHTLY differently; however, many will have the overused characters positions held by the canon characters.

In a way, you can say that this is the opposite of an SI. Instead of a 16 year-old girl being set to Earthland, you have all of the Fairy Tail characters sent to be 16 year-olds. Weird huh? Not only that, often times, High School AU's are simply a method for the author to write their favourite ships in a more comfortable setting, simply because they are too horrible of a writer to do it properly in canon.

A good example is Natsu being the bad boy, then getting together with Lucy, who is often portrayed as a shy girl that gets high grades. This portrayal is wrong in my opinion, as Lucy is more of then popular, cheerleader type of girl. Levy would fit the geek/nerd or intelligent shy girl type far better than Lucy.

This is quite a common usage of the High School AU in which a 16 year-old girl can write a NaLu fic without actually be that well versed in Fairy Tail.

Now, you might be asking - 'Hey, none of these are necessarily bad!' Well here it comes.

The hunk of garbage that follows is the exact same shit that you will see in other stories - horrible writing.

Many High School AU authors will simply shove canonical characters into positions that don't even fit their character. Levy may fit as a nerd but is Natsu really a true bad boy? What about Gray. What about fucking Laxus as a god damned nerd? These authors pay no attention to actual information and often shove all the characters into the same grade despite age differences.

Not only that, back stories are completely rewritten - often horribly, to fit the universe. Most if not all of these stories are written so far off from the original character's personalities that they might as well just write an entire OC story.

This setting is difficult to do right. Personally instead of trying, I would suggest in not writing High School AU's, period. They simply do not fit with fantasy characters or hell, even fucking Lord of the Rings in high school.

However, if you are completely SET on writing a high school AU no matter what anyone says, then hopefully I can be of help below.

Just like any other AU setting or different story line, WORLD BUILD WORLD BUILD. Write notes for what sort of social status the characters are going to have in the high school.

Ex. Teacher, student, jock, nerd, and geek.

WORLD BUILD UNTIL YOUR BALLS FALL OFF.

Do the necessary research on each of the characters that way you know where they will fit best. Natsu is more of a class-clown then a bad boy, Lucy is more of a cheerleader than a nerd, Levy is definitely the high grades shy girl, Laxus could be this huge jock that is also insecure with a soft side.

OOCness is one of the biggest problems, when we're ignoring the fact the story takes place in high school of course. As long as you have a beta who can bear the AU itself and knows the characters by heart, then interactions shouldn't be that difficult. You could always make an Earthland academy where EVERY character goes to the same school, instead of having Phantom Lord academy or Fairy Tail academy. It could be Earthland high where different sections of the high school have team names (I had this in my school).

 **College AU's:** Essentially the same as a High School AU, but instead of High School - they are in College.

For College AU's, you have an author that is currently in college or even a high schooler that learned of college from movies and TV that in no way reflect how college actually is - this is how you get the really shitty frat fics.

In College AU's, apparently males and females boarding together are a popular thing for shipping. Not even that, teacher/student relationships between canonical characters that SHOULD be around the same age are also a thing.

On another note, such AU's are often paired with horribly written lemons.

This setting is the same as the High School AU's in terms of whether or not to do it.

However, it is also relatively similar to the high school AU in regards on HOW to do it. If you are not actually in college, I would suggest asking someone in college how life is like. There are MANY types of colleges: party schools, academic school, commuting schools, etc. You could actually get a lot of readers if you have the Fairy Tail cast experience what the readers themselves are experiencing in college (Ex. Paper deadlines, missing buses, oversleeping a midterm, etc.). Then, you could have the characters react in a way that would fit their canon self. Such as Natsu flipping a table when he fails a test or maybe even goes out on a drunk car ride breaking things - I could potentially see this happening.

 **Band Fic AU's:** Basically what a Band Fic is, is that the characters - often male - will be in a band. Not only that, the name of the band will be straight shit ranging from but not limited to: The Tenrou Group, Fairy Tail, Earthlanders, Fairy Rockers, or something equally stupid and unoriginal.

Then the preferred ship will happen where something like Lucy is a fan, gets to meet Natsu - the leader of the Band, for the first time; then the pairing develops. Seriously this is a crazed fan girl getting the band's leader! This shit gets you a restraining order and probably law suits in real life; but like I said, self-fulfillment of 70% of .

 **Diary of a High School Rockband** by CrimsonNight41

IN MY OPINION, Band Fics are so much higher on the shouldn't list than the previous AU's; but if you insist on doing one, then I do have a few suggestions. Again, I will reiterate, betas, world building, character planning, character research, and plot building.

Besides those basic ones, Band Fics could go through struggles of actual aspiring bands (assuming they are not some sort of 1 in 100,000 super rock star right away shit). These could include, finding gigs, trying to balance life and school, or just finding it difficult to practice and study at the same time. Maybe even a moment of confusion where the character in the band has a life crisis about to give up music for school or give up school for music. This could always make good reads for the right people.

Band Fics simply aren't my cup of tea. However, if you follow the above advice and remove the annoying Sue traits or unprepared aspects, THEN it could be a good read.

 **Business AU's:** Basically imagine this: Natsu Dragneel is the son of Igneel, CEO of some random energy company called the 'Fire Dragons' or whatever fucking retard name you can have for a company. Then Lucy Heartfilia, is the daughter of the head of the greatest empire of energy generation! Then Natsu and Lucy meet in a business meeting and end up falling in love.

All the main characters tend to be high up in a company. Makarov could be the head of Fairy Tail industries or something equally stupid.

Despite not knowing the corporate ladder myself, I don't need to be a CEO to tell them that businesses don't work the way authors of this AU actually think it is.

This setting COULD work - more so than the above two settings. This is because the Fairy Tail hierarchy can be adopted into a business world while still keeping the characters relatively IN character.

Ex. The Fairy Tail Festival could be Laxus trying a takeover of Makarov's company with his personal team of genius lawyers.

Ex. Phantom Lord Arc is when Jose tries to pull a lawsuit on Makarov and the entire arc is a big massive court case.

Ex. Lucy joining the guild is her getting hired to a management position, etc.

So hey, this AU can actually be done pretty well in the confines of both worlds. I say again, get a beta, world build ESPECIALLY, and make sure to ask yourself all those questions before writing. Also, please don't make all the company names retarded similar to their Fairy Tail counterparts. Hell, Fairy Tail could be Dreyar industries - this would make more sense.

 **Coffee Shop AU's:** If 16 year-old girls write High School AU's, then 20+ year-old girls write Coffee Shop AU's. They always make these AU's seem as if working at a coffee shop is homey and somehow allows you to find romance. These authors have obviously never worked at a Starbucks before.

Although not a big portion of the AU talk and nothing really bash-worthy. It is noted to say that all the AU's from above are meant to write a story in a less intense setting and to focus on more relationship building and shipping.

Keep in mind that, while AU's themselves are not necessarily bad in nature, most if not all presentations of such would involve OOCness, plot inconsistencies, horrible romance writing, and just all around awfulness.

This AU is more of a calmer environment compared to the above three. It is really open to any real world scenario or it could just be a slow burn that focuses between the romance or shipping between the main cast.

 **Gender Bend AU's:** Gender Bend AU's are classified by the changing of genders of one or more character(s). More often than not, the gender bender occurs in one of the main characters, for example, Natsu.

 **One of the Girls** by Lemony Yuri Snicket

My god. Out of all the gender bend fics out there I cannot find one more disturbing as this one. Natsu is gender bent. Gray is gender bent. And there is a Yuri, FUTANARI and HAREM.

Disregarding that, the setting itself is on a 89 degree angled slope covered in black ice. You could gender bend Lucy as a guy and maybe have it turn decently well into a Lucy x Lisanna (although the ships become personal preference). It is so easy to turn a story using this setting into some OOC hogwash that belong in an Arabic zoo. If you plan on writing something in this genre, you must focus on character interactions in a way that wouldn't make the story fatalist.

It would be quite difficult to do in my opinion, as simply changing the gender of one character doesn't really change anything in the story except for some potential new shippings. Then again, this is probably why people write them, so they can make gay fics that aren't gay.

If you are really dead set in making a story in this setting, just remember my advice: world build, character interactions, don't make characters too OOC - some can be excused due to different environments. Remember, AU's are fun because readers want to see their favourite characters react or interact in a different setting! If you write OC's with canon names then it would ruin the point of the story!

 **Online AU's:** So apparently this became a thing. Teenage girls nowadays now want to meet their special prince through a random chat room and are pretending like they get more than dick pics from old Indian immigrants.

Tumblr and Facebook are the most common settings for this type of story to take place. Again, these are probably written by social outcasts who don't even know how to interact with people to the point THAT they have to write a story about pairing on the internet.

Who needs to fucking even describe relationships when you can just write a script format story with dumb usernames like fucking Steller, Celestial, Dragon Slayer, Salamander, Fairy, or whatever cancerous name such as Minipa. Wait. Oh yeah I am straight human diarrhea and a stain on humanity.

When did this become an AU? Why are authors subjecting my favourite characters into such horrible script style stories?

 _It's time to stop._

· _Filthy Frank_

That is the perfect quote for this type of AU. I can't imagine a story where this is written well that is literally not a complete OC story but with Fairy Tail's names added.

Again for this AU, if you are so dead set you have to write this, follow my above advice and do all those basic world building techniques. Don't have the characters be too OOC, and don't make romance unrealistic.

In addition, instead of using random chatrooms, have the characters use Tinder or some other dating app that people actually use.

 **Time Travel AU's** : Time Travel AU's, are stories in which one way or another, a character, usually The MC (Natsu usually in Fairy Tail stories) will go back or is sent back in time due to various circumstances.

These stories often become a rehash of canon and more often than not, the character sent back will shitstomp the absolute fuck out of every single enemy in one shot and probably fuck Erza, Mira, Cana, and Lucy all at the same time as well because he apparently grew four dicks in the time travel aspect of the story.

In time travel stories, usually everyone dies except the MC (if you think the Natsu time travel story is bad wait until you see the Naruto ones), then someone sends them back in time. This could a variety of different things.

Zeref, Igneel, or some random Mage could just asspull a time-travel magic and sent him back. I have mentioned in my profile, that a bombshell Kami-sama could 'seductively' give them a second chance - this has been overdone to the ground ESPECIALLY in Naruto crossovers where Naruto goes into Fairy Tail.

 **Time if the path to Strength** by Repiece

 **Back and on my way** by Nero01

Now, once the time travel has happened, Natsu or Lucy or whoever fucking else will be sent back. This usually happens either to the beginning of canon history (when they're young) or when they join Fairy Tail (canon for Lucy). Here is when the 'magic' happens. The character often becomes OOC, interactions become shallow as all of a sudden a likeable character with actual flaws is now a calm and collected wise-beyond-their-years Sue.

The story below is actually one of my favourite time travel stories out there. The over usage of fan-gags, fan-tropes, and shit like EVERY guy in EVERY pairing is whipped. Even Naruto with Hinata - this got really repetitive after a while; but other than that, I really like the level of world building.

 **The Element of Time** by rasEnshur1KEn

The author's name gave me autism just typing it. Anyways, the story above is the OPPOSITE of a fatalist fic. He was able to make ripples like a Texas belly flopping contest.

Honestly the amount of world-building done by this author was exactly its saving grace, and its greatest achievement. There are definitely some weird plot inconsistencies but I was able to overlook it because of the good things it was able to achieve. Even when Naruto used his time travel knowledge to get several people on his side to prepare for the war, a WHOLE new set of enemies appear, making their struggle arguably harder. Not only that, despite the massive amount of changes Naruto DID make, some of history ended up repeating itself.

While in most of the Fairy Tail time travel stories, they barely do any world building. They would have been a fatalist fic if not for the sole reason that Natsu is an overpowered fuck surrounded by emotionless vaginas. Emotionless Vaginas? That's just the term for female characters in Harem fics - this will get a BIG section. For those of you harem authors, beware of MINIPA.

Keep in mind that, while Time Travel stories have their own set of tropes such as god-like, harem, bash, fatalist, etc. It doesn't mean they cannot be done well! Time travel stories open the door to many potential story lines! It can also lead to the MC encountering new problems because the villains responded accordingly to their changes! Any and all AU's could be done well in its own settings. New struggles, challenges, and plot points could be used! It only needs a little bit more creativity!

Ex. Natsu finds some time stone that sends him back in time without him actually meaning to. The story could be him adapting to reliving a portion of his life and then changing things from there. Then we go into his head at his distress because new problems arise that he wasn't able to see. Even with his increase strength/intelligence, Natsu still ends up struggling because new enemies show up from his decisions.

 **Conclusion:** Some of these AU's can be done WELL. Time travel can be more than just a god-like harem story that somehow managed to become fatalist. Time travel stories COULD open up the door for far more plots, different struggles yet at the same time, having a stronger/smarter MC! If all just has to be done properly!

An AU is a fun way to imagine the characters in another setting, but to do so, you must remember to world build and keep the characters IN character to make it possible! If you are going to write a High School AU regardless of what I say, please at least answer all of the world building questions in as much detail as possible. That way, even if it is a setting that not all will like, people won't see the common issues that plague that type of AU.

Ex. OOC, incorrect positions, horrible romance, and combination of band fics.

If some of you REALLY want to write one of the AU's above, then perhaps I can give you some suggestions myself on what COULD work if you were to PM me. Please make sure you do all the world building questions and get a beta or just a second pair of eyes.

 **Theme for this Chapter:** WORLD BUILD WORLD BUILD LIKE GOD KAI THE EVERYTHING ALL-SLAYER ELEMENTAL HIMSELF.

Thanks for reading everyone, I'll see you next time for some more gay stuff :)

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 **Chapter 4 Finished! Next Chapter - Types of Fics!**

 **Make sure you guys check out my other stories!**

 **Read my profile and join my Trope discussion forums!**

 **[ROTLB: The Birth of the Light Bringer]**

 **[ROTLB: Light of Fairies]**

 **[Chef Ramsay]**

 **[A God's Redemption]**

 **[The Nothing Dragon Slayer's Misadventures in Fairy Tail]**

 **Minipa, out!**


	5. CH5 - Types of Fics

**Chapter 5 - Types of Fics**

 **Now that we finished the specific story lines, is it time to moved onto the TYPES of fics, what is often wrong with them and what can be done to fix it**.

 **Ex. God-like fics, Lawful hero fics, bash fics, etc.**

 **January 6, 2018 Update: Why my edge meter was over 9000 when I wrote this chapter. Pretty sure I took out 1,000+ words of me talking shit, damn.**

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Let us begin with what is probably one of the most common and boring of the fics.

 **God-Like:** What is exactly a god-like fic? It is exactly as it implies. The MC, often an OC or Natsu from one of those stronger Natsu stories, is FAR more powerful than all the other characters and the villains especially.

Stories like this are cool for maybe a chapter, and in all honesty, fics such as these belongs only as a one shot that is about 3,000 words long. Anything longer than that belongs in the waste management depot and sent straight to the landfill.

Why are full god-like stories horrible in practice? Simple; it is because god-like stories have no struggles, no sense of tension, and no sense of action. In fact, if not for the structure of the story, you could almost call it at crack fic. Usually, the MC will handle everything thrown at them without a single issue, from one shotting Erigor to Natsu knocking around Gildarts like the physics engine stopped working in valve games.

This makes the fic extremely boring to read simply because of the fact that nothing exciting ever happens, you already know the MC is going to win no issue. So why even bother reading except for a couple of one-shots? In fact, I use to like god like stories, but then I stopped simply because it got more redundant the more I read it.

When it comes to GL stories, it is ESPECIALLY common in Naruto crossovers where Naruto has the ALL the bloodlines. Then, he Rambos everyone like woman and children in a communist country. Somehow, stories like these still become fatalist. I remember reading a Naruto crossover fic where Naruto offers additionally dialogue and spell names, bangs every Fairy Tail chick from Fiore to Nopeland, then canon remains the same.

What? This seems to be the work of fentanyl combined with heroin. Whatever those authors are smoking though, I need to get me some of that.

Not only that, god-like fics tend to be partnered with an even more horrible type of fics - harems.

 **Unstable** by TheUchihaDragon

Here is an excerpt of a darker Natsu god-like story:

 _'Erigor could only look in fear as the seemingly ordinary light mage glared at him._

 _"Hahahaha… Sorry about losing my cool there. It just really pisses me off, but say… What do you know about ants?" Natsu questioned with a strange smile. Erigor didn't give a response, his own fear taking over him._

 _"Ants go for areas where there are a lot of blood… They tend to go there and bite and eat!" Natsu grew loud. Erigor's eyes went wide. What could he mean by that!?_

 _"I've been working on some new spells… and to say that I'm happy is an understatement! I created a spell that creates creatures made to kill! Tigers, boars, **ants** , and many more… I know they sound lame, but the results are… amusing to say the least," Natsu continued. Erigor tried to get away, finally realizing what the Salamander was trying to do. Just as he was about to get away, skeletal hands grabbed his limbs, holding him in place. _

**_"Death God's Creation!"_** _Natsu shouted with a crazy grin. Thousands of black ants then sprouted from the ground, quickly dashing towards Erigor's wounds._

 _"These ants will eat you alive. They will eat your orgrans while they burrow inside your body. I did it before… and it never gets old, seeing your terrified faces! Natsu laughed as he threw his head back. Erigor started screaming as the ants started eating, biting, and burrowing inside his head, and chest. The multiple wounds were growing larger as the ants took even more bites. He stopped screaming however, as the ants in his head were now going down his throat…_

 _All Natsu did, was laugh and smile…'_

WELL FUCK ME IN THE ASS, this story made the ANTICHRIST LOOK LIKE THE CARE BEARS 1 HOUR SPECIAL

Anyways, ignoring Mr. Edgy McKatana, the grammar is actually pretty decent. It didn't have anything in regards to: missing words, wrong pronouns, wrong tenses, etc. that I could see. However, the main issue from this excerpt are the changes from the struggle against Erigor.

In canon, Natsu was able to advance one step further despite the fight being relatively quick paced. In the excerpt however, the darker Natsu completely annihilated Erigor then devoured him with ants.

ANTS I TELL YOU!

The reason why god-like fics are good for one chapter or one shots is simply because of this reason. Reading Natsu rape Erigor from twelve different orifices with all the colours of the rainbow could be SOMEWHAT entertaining to the right people, but reading an entire story like this? Even dark razor bladed edge lords have a limit.

Disregarding the dark nature of this story, most of the god-like Natsu stories are literally just Natsu steam rolling all of the past villains either through time travel, extra training sessions, or maybe Igneel taught him a little bit more and he ends up able to use dragon force in canon, or becomes an EVERYTHING ALL SLAYER GOD ELEMENETAL, etc.

 **A Strength of a thousand dragons** by Lepidus

This random god-like Natsu fics involves a horrible OOC Natsu x Harem where he one shots Gildarts. GILDARTS. I understand you want to make him stronger but the power scaling seems a bit suspicious.

Anyways, in addition to god-like fics, here is a stronger Natsu fic that made him darker and stronger without going overboard. I assume some authors write their favourite characters stronger than in canon, but end up going overboard, resulting in a god-like fics. After that, they add the god-like suffix to their summary after realizing it.

I assume that some of the god-like stories aren't exactly meant to be THE FUHRER'S PERSONAL SS CORPS SMASHING THROUGH THE GREEK ECONOMY WITH THE RATTE LANDKREUZER 1000.

 **The Rise of a Dragon** by Plasnix112

This story is actually pretty decent. The power balance is good despite Natsu being a little bit on the tough side, but not a complete dick. He is an independent mage that had some interactions with Fairy Tail and his power is a little bit above Erza's own.

Now, the god-like setting itself could actually work if the god-like MC was not actually the centric character. Let's say you have an OC that is aged 50-60 and is Gildarts level. Instead of him beating everyone and everything in one shot, he takes a mentor position and lets the other characters struggle through.

If you plan on writing a god-like fic, don't expect it to be a good story unless it's about a backseat MC or even just a fun one-shot.

IF you are writing a god-like story regardless of what I say, then imagine writing Fairy Tail in Gildart's perspective. One where he is present at all the canon arcs. He could have solo'd Phantom Lord in a single punch, beat down Laxus until his asshole turns inside out enough to be spit roasted on his 35 inch dick, and probably make the entire Edolas arc look like the Tianmen square massacre. Will he? No.

 **Harem Fics:** OH BOY here we go! *Cracks Knuckles*

To start off, there are multiple things wrong with harem fics, but I'm going to skip the VERY obvious part about where you need to have Mary Sue traits just to make it happen. Harems are like a political ideology for the sole purpose of creating excrement and is the literary equivalent of aids. Perhaps I can actually shine a couple lights in the otherwise dark corners of this type of story.

 **Warrior of the Creator: Fairy Tail** by BrxkenArrow

I will be using this story to illustrate my next few points regarding harems.

Now, grammar and structure is pretty decent, but that is not what we are talking about here. I will be telling you why harems don't work and the practical usage of it as a plot device is bad practice. Here is a little excerpt from the author's notes of the story:

 ** _'Oh! Final harem has been decided. Future changes and/or additions are unlikely. But not impossible._**

 ** _Cana, Mira, Lucy, Bisca, Ultear, and Jenny.'_**

The first and most obvious problem is that from the characters established in canon, the women in the harem would probably not WANT to be in the harem. Multiple Mary Sue traits would be needed to make this harem possible, and even then, you would need OOCness for the females.

Not only that, the way all the woman are portrayed in these stories make them seem like objects, after they are included in the harem. They might have some flirty or characteristic moments but that is about it. After they join in the harem they are written as dick clinging sluts involved in horribly written smuts. Hey I made a rhyme! Should I become Lil' Minipa now?

All of these woman have their own characters! It is important to portray them, even if sometimes OOC can be excused if the situation calls for it! However, in this case, the situation DOESN'T call for it and the purpose of the OOC is just to make the harem element achievable.

Crush Blushing: You probably heard me mention this a couple times before. Just what is it? You know in anime, when a girl sees a hot protagonist, they often shy girl blush and then think about how handsome they are?

Crush blushing at OC's is a HUGE sign of a harem story, or even just romance in general. This is a sign that you should stop reading immediately, turn off your computer, drive to the white house, and report this as a federal offense. Writing every fucking girl in Fairy Tail as some blushing school girl is one of the greatest disservices I have seen done to their characters since the rise of rape fetishization.

Quite a lot of anime do this actually; The Rage of Bahamut: Virgin Soul is actually a pretty good example. The protagonist of that anime is essentially an OC Mary Sue written by a fan from the first season. Her ability is to crush blush into a dragon, yes. SHE TURNS INTO A DRAGON FROM FUCKING CRUSH BLUSHING. I felt like my IQ got dumped straight into the gulf of Mexico after another oil spill.

However, if you think about it, canon anime are written by authors just like you and me. Just because some are published doesn't mean the story or characters are designed well.

Here is an example excerpt from another harem fic:

 **Demon King of Fairy Tail** by MaelstromBankai

' _The boy wore a long-sleeved, ankle-length black coat with red lining that was open at his chest and held together by three 'x' shaped marks, then left to flare out into a number of ragged coattails. He also had four vertical black lines on his forearms and black, tattoo-like bands crossing over his chest, wrists, and ankles. Similar bands, but with crimson ends, were around his neck as collars. His pants were very streamlined and form-fitting yet hung loosely enough for him to feel comfortable in. She felt herself blush lightly as his sculpted form could be seen through his clothing. A face mask hid most of his face from view and created a mysterious look to him while his shoulder-length golden mane whipped about in the wind. Resting on his left hip was a sheathed katana while a huge great sword strapped unto his back. 'Wow…he looks so cool!' Her blush deepened._

Keep in mind, the person thinking this is ERZA SCARLET. Erza would never do this, with MAYBE the exception of Jellal. Also, remember the Mary Sue trait sections? This one paragraph alone had purple prose like words (Ex. Golden mane to describe hair), unnecessarily long descriptions of clothing, OOC Erza acting like a school girl, as well as the crush blush.

What I noticed about many of the Naruto crossovers is that they all seem to follow the formula below:

Purple prose + No sentence variety + Bad grammar + Crush blushing + OOC + Harem + God-like + Edgelord Naruto + OOC Casanova Naruto + Naruto is an OC = Naruto Crossover.

If you are planning to write a harem fic, don't.

PLEASE.

If even after reading the above passages, you are still set in writing a harem story, then I have a couple suggestions that could work for the situation.

Writing harems is the same as going down a slope with an 89 degree incline splattered completely with 120 tons of WD40. However, if you are going to write a harem regardless of what I say, then please hold tight in your mom's basements for I have a couple of suggestions that MIGHT work.

Before you actually write a harem, you have to consider some questions that you have to answer; such as: can this character attract that many woman, is my OC a Mary Sue to the extreme to make this possible, would the girls in the harem ever wish to actually be in the harem?

I'm not sure about you, but harems I could actually see happening in EXTREME circumstances are Jellal x Erza x Ultear and Natsu x Lisanna x Lucy. Harem shipping is by far, the most abhorrent idea ever created; they are borderline tragic war communist child rape master/slave yaoi; BUT, if I have to say one or two then it would be those pairings.

Ex. In Jellal x Erza x Ultear, Jellal could have some feelings developed for Ultear because they would have been in Crime Sorciere for a 5+ years during the time skip. Then, when Erza comes back, this could cause conflicting feelings between the three which COULD cause a harem. Although Jellal might just choose one or the other if he actually decided to go with a girl.

 **Self-Insert Fics:** Self-insert fics are a common type of OC stories that can be found in all fandoms. Some of them are actually pretty interesting and good to read. Here are some types of Self-Insert Fics:

Falls into Fandom: While similar to 'sent to another world', it does have key differences. Usually, the difference is that the character is dropped unexpectedly into the world, often with no precursor whatsoever.

Ex. Re:Zero as Subaru was randomly teleported into the fantasy world without any sort of indication he was 'sent'.

Normally, the stories that do this can go two ways: one where the OC that falls in tries to get back to their own world, or the OC gains some sort of OP ability and ends up being a Mary Sue harem story. If it is the latter, it's not self-insert as the author is writing a perfect author avatar that does not represent who they are in real life at all.

Personally, I would prefer the former as it is more realistic and relatable. If I were to fall into ANY fandom, I would probably start thinking of ways to get home to my life instead of fucking with canon and potentially get killed, unless I was high. Here is a story that would fit in this category.

 **The Muggle Among Mages** by PhantomGalaxy13

This story is actually very good in its representation of an ACTUAL person getting sent to Fairy Tail would react. Despite having foreknowledge of the world, the OC acts just how you and I would act, and is actively trying to return home.

Here is an example excerpt of when the OC is in Earthland:

 _"You alright?" The pink haired man asked with confusion._

 _"Yeah, yeah…" He looked a lot like Natsu Dragneel from the famous Fairy Tail series; the same clothes, the same hair, style, and physique. There was even a blue cat that stood on two legs with giant eyes with a small bag tied behind his back. Unless it w as a hologram, and even then 3D animation and holographic technology was still in it's infancy stages, no cat alive was blue, could talk, and stood on two legs while having a head bigger than his body._

 _It was strange non the less, but as I subconsciously took in the area around me: a forest when I should have been in a park in Vancouver, the sun shining brightly without a single cloud despite how a storm was brewing so suddenly, and the fact there wasn't a single cement path within sight due to all the trees even though I saw a sign of civilization nearly everywhere I glanced before._

 _My mind was jumping to a rather farfetched, but potentially plausible idea._

 _"By any chance are you… Natsu Dragneel?"_

Honestly, I'm not sure if it's the fact I live right by Vancouver (Stanley Park anyone?), or the fact that this author has similar thought processes, but this story is DAMNED good for a self insert.

The realistic reaction, to the proper grammar and sentence structure, all of it is how a SI story SHOULD be.

Instead of magically becoming an OC Mary Sue AND a Shonen protagonist, the OC is genuinely scared of his life in the world and is actively trying to return! Most other SI stories end up becoming a regular OC story! If it wasn't for the first chapters of such stories explaining how the SI got into the world, I would think it WAS an OC story.

Yet, this story has less reviews than warrior creator story. That story might as well be the replacement of every single copy of the Tanakh in the Belz Great Synagogue with a signed edition of 'Mein Kampf.'

Reincarnation: Another type of self insert is a reincarnation fic. It is where the MC dies - often by a car crash, and is reborn into another world.

Seriously, what is with people dying by a car crash? Can people really not think of a way to die that is NOT being struck by a vehicle? Why a fucking car? Can't you write a story where you kill yourself out of contempt of life itself then you reincarnate into Fairy Tail where the emotional development is learning to be happier? I mean, I bet a good portion of users on Fanfiction use this website to escape their unsatisfactory realities. Hell, I come here for that.

If you're in America, why not die in a shooting? That shit is common as fuck there.

Anyways, some of these stories has the OC growing up as a kid all over again with their memories intact, or they are reincarnated as they are, then sent to another world.

The latter is similar to the 3rd SI setting, but is different in the way that the MC dies first before getting sent.

 **The Next Chapter** by hibesdude

Below is an excerpt of the story above, showing how the SI was reincarnated to the next world. Paragraphs will be skipped to summarise the section:

 ** _"Well aren't you an interesting mortal~"_** _a powerful voice spoke out, it sounded feminine, sultry yet childish and playful. It held wonder and intelligence. Honestly it was the most beautiful voice, no sound, I have ever heard…_

 _… **My name is Anabella I am an angel of life and death, a servant of the Shinigami, we have to talk about your next step. Mainly what to do now. You have multiple 1 stay here in limbo, option 2 be judged and go to either heaven or hell, option 3 reincarnation."…**_

 _…"Alright that's acceptable, I choose option number three."_

 ** _"Excellent most people actually choose number two because they don't understand that it's not a repeat of their past life…_**

 ** _Choose a world_**

 ** _Fairy Tail_**

 ** _One Piece_**

 ** _Attack on Titan…_**

 ** _…"Ok that will do, what magic do you wish to learn?"_**

 _"Honestly I don't know I was hoping for it to be a surprise."_

Some of you have read my story 'The Nothing Dragon Slayer's Misadventures in Fairy Tail'. You might have noticed that the process going from world to world is pretty similar. The only difference is that the MC DIED in the original world before being sent to the Fairy Tail universe.

This is not necessarily story breaking; but, getting sent to another world by a beautiful deity IS rather cliché. It is actually relatively common for Naruto crossovers, sometimes, the deities will even train Naruto into their husbands or something of that autistic nature. As if a harem of regular girls wasn't enough for harem authors, they need to add OC deities as well for him. Come on people, fanfiction isn't a competition on 'who can write the literary equivalent of the black plague'.

Reincarnation fics can also be similar to 'falls into fandom,' the only requirement for this type of fic is that the MC has to die before anything happens. Whether they meet a deity, straight into another world, or reborn as a baby, are all possible outcomes as long as the MC dies.

Sent to another world: This sort of fic is actually similar to my own 'The Nothing Dragon Slayer' story. Except a story that is serious about the self-insert. The SIOC will often get some sort of power, making them stronger.

The difference between this and falls into fandom is that there's usually some sort of middle ground between the real world and the anime world. Ex. Waking up into a limbo-like space before being moved to the next world by an omnipotent deity.

 **Adventure in Fairy Tail (A Self-Insert Story)** by Tredan13

This story is pretty similar to how I wrote my own story in Chapter 1; the OC randomly ends up in some limbo like world, then meets a god that gives him a power, then sends him to Fairy Tail.

Regardless of which type of self-insert it is, all of them have the same trap. OC Mary Sues. Then the self-insert will change canon however they want as they tend to have foreknowledge of what happens in canon.

Now, when the self-insert OC starts changing things in canon. This can actually work in reality; instead of the SIOC being some sort of mastermind god that orchestrates every single thing yet, still becomes fatalist, the villains could react accordingly to the changes the OC is making; this would create new forms of tension and struggles unfamiliar to the readers or the OC. IMO, this could actually be more fun to read than some harem bullshit!

Another problem with self-inserts is that many times, the author ruins the actual immersion between the reader and the character by constantly breaking the fourth wall. You know how my fuckery of a story does that? This sort of thing should ONLY be used in crack fics like that piece of cancer pulled straight from my ass; but in actual SI stories, this should not happen. References to real life jokes or even memes COULD be acceptable if it is not overused. However, I would still recommend minimizing those simply to not ruin a more serious setting - like how Disney ruined star wars by making it a Marvel-like comedy in serious moments.

Now, self-inserts aren't necessarily bad; the things I listed above are the common tropes of having a self-insert and how people tend to fuck it up because of wish-fulfillment.

When it comes to self-inserts, it should be easy to stay in character as you are writing yourself! Unless of course you need shadow work and don't even know yourself, then there's nothing you can do. Despite The Nothing Dragon Slayer being a joke fic, all the shit I said is actually pretty realistic in regards to how I speak with my friends and the way I think on the inside. If I were actually drunk and high, that story might have been pretty realistic.

However, the issue with self-inserts is that instead of authors writing themselves, they end up thinking of ways of how they can make their author avatar perfect! This is how they end up writing a character that they WANT to be instead of what they ARE. In reality, many SIOC fics become just regular OC Mary Sue fics because the authors simply cannot resist the temptation of doing so.

My suggestion in SIOC's is to write YOURSELF. NOT your author avatar. Your flaws, your struggles, put it all in! That way, the readers can relate to what you are going through!

Remember, self-inserts are a different genre of OC's from actual OC's! Let's keep it that way!

 **Fix Fic:** A fix-fic is a story in which the author believes a certain part of the story could have gone better, or the author wants to makes thinks all sunshine and rainbows. So for the first part, we will be taking a look at this story that matches the latter.

 **Ripples** by the Real Narnia

Excerpt time go! Here (it has to end with a colon or else I would get triggered):

 _'Tomorrow I pick up Juvia Lockser…_

 _…Honestly, I should have just gone straight to the orphanage._

 _There, I found Juvia sitting outside under a tree while it rained. There were a circle of kids around her, and they were all yelling at her._

 _"Oil, kids!" I yelled. "Scram, or I'll tell the Matron!"_

 _Luckily, it was the right thing to say, as the kids all ran away and back into the building…_

 _…"They were upset because Juvia makes it rain, but Juvia cannot control it," the little girl said, sniffling. I would guess she was five years old._

 _"Your name is Juvia?" I asked her._

 _She nodded._

 _"That's such a pretty name," I told her. "And don't worry about your rain at all."_

 _"What? But-"_

 _"So you can't control it, so what?" I said, rolling my eyes. "You're a child! You have instinctive magic, and you shouldn't be expected to already know how to control it. And besides there's nothing wrong with the rain."_

 _"There…isn't?"_

 _"No, silly!" I said, holding out a hand. She took it and I pulled her up. "You just need to know how to have fun in the rain!"_

 _"You can do that?" she asked._

 _"Of course!" I told her. "I'd rather have fun in the rain with a friend than not have any fun at all! And I'd much rather be here with you than be alone."…_

 _…I smiled at her. "Good. Let me take care of this for you, thought, I have some extra storage in my requip space." I took her suitcase and requipped it, so we didn't need to carry it. "Alright, let's go!"_

 _Juvia grabbed my hand with hers and started pulling me down the road._

 _"Juvia, silly, you don't even know where we're going!" I said._

 _"But then train station is this way, Onee-sama!"_

From the excerpt above, most of you know that the OC searched and found Juvia while she was still a child, and made her sadder back story into a happy sunshine one. Elle - the OC, later gets Juvia to join Fairy Tail, before moving onto the other characters.

Ex. Laxus, Lucy, Gildarts, and Cana.

I won't bother with some of my other observations, but after reading chapter 1. The OC was sent (not sure if it was self-insert) to the Fairy Tail world with a variety of different magics - including this OC magic: Planetary magic allowing her to use 9 elemental magics. Although this is a sue trait by itself, the main discussion is the actual plot of the story.

This story, despite being written decently, involves the character trying to fix the pasts of the individual characters. The OC goes and removes Juvia's bad childhood altogether which is an important part of her character. All the things that happened to the characters, good and bad, is what makes them, them!

Now, changes to canon can actually be a good thing; personally, I thought the Edolas and the Alvarez Arc sucked harder than an airbending shop vac operated by M. Night Shyamalan. A fix fic could lets say, change the way Erza fought Irene and loosen some of the plot armour covering her - making the battle one of actual struggle and risk. After having all her bones broken, she goes and cuts a meteor? Like what. If all your bones were broken you would not be able to stand. You wouldn't even be able to fucking move because your neck is donezo. Mashima get your fucking head out of the toilet and write something that wouldn't make the Dalai Lama become a Nihilist.

Of course, this type of fic isn't story breaking as the plot line is the point of the story itself. It's not really something such as a harem that can be ADDED into an otherwise good story to plunge it into the great depression. Although this fic is in a grey area, I personally believe that fixing every past the characters have to make everything sunshine and rainbows remove essences of development, struggle, character relations, and simply removes substance from the story.

All in all, this is a disservice.

Also, here is an excerpt of an author's note that flipped some triggers of mine:

 ** _'Also, I put a lot of work into this. If things seem odd, it's probably meant to be that way. It will be explained in time._**

 ** _Please review - they get me thinking and writing faster.'_**

Not story breaking, but this is honestly a HUGE pet peeve of mine. When the author said that if something seems out of place, it meant they purposely did it. Have you really? If a sentence seems odd, or if a comma is missing, it was meant to be?

Remember my previous discussions about shit fixing and mysterious pasts? When author says it will be explained in time, most of time, it isn't. That line just seems like a sentence meant to wave off criticism.

The second line, where the author asked to review, is also another pet peeve. Although, it is nowhere near as bad as some people, who actually THREATEN to not write if people don't review.

Fix fics can actually be intertwined with two new types of Mary Sues.

Peggy Sue: A Peggy Sue is a character that, usually at the end of the series, is given a chance to relive their lives with the knowledge and sometimes the strength they gained in the first life. This sometimes uses a death fic set-up in which the MC's friends all die, then the MC is sent back to try and prevent their deaths.

This type of fic is more common in One Piece stories - the most popular fanfiction in One Piece is a Peggy Sue.

While this sort of fix fic might become a overly God-like Natsu or Luffy if it's in one piece. The story can actually be written with risks if the only thing they gained is prior knowledge. Often times, the only way they made it through the first time is by being completely garbed in two-layered enchanted full rune plot armor. Something they will unlikely have the second time unless the author wishes it - then it will just be bad writing.

They usually have to deal with a weaker and less experienced body, mental baggage, gaps in their knowledge regarding pasts events, and then people getting suspicious about them knowing things they shouldn't know before getting forced to spill the beans in an awkward chapter. As the MC changes more and more things, the new timeline becomes more and more skewed from the original and end up far different than they had left behind. Some of these stories even become fatalist despite the butterfly effect.

Have you guys watched Edge of Tomorrow? Where Tom Cruise dies over and over again like Re:Zero just to be sent back in time to where he started, getting stronger and more knowledgeable about past events? Fix it fics are often time travel fics in disguise - but can also be shitty SIOC's.

Black-hole sue: The black hole sue is called this, because their gravity is so great, that they draw all the attention and causes the other character, to surround her, often times accommodating. Most of the time, the Sue dominates all of the scenes they are in, where scenes without the MC serves so the other characters can 'talk' about the Sue.

Normally this is because of blatant author favourtism, often VERY prevalent in Naruto crossover harem fics.

Although not an extreme example, the story I used as an example above has properties of the black hole sue. Due to the fact that the OC fixed everyone's tragic pasts, she made herself an integral part of their lives and development. Making the rest of the canon cast surround her in terms of importance.

Therefore, if you are thinking of writing a fix fic, make sure you know which part to change and which part not to. You shouldn't change the characters simply because you don't want them to be sad. However, unsucking certain arcs is definitely a green light when it comes to rewrites.

 **Bash Fic:** Stories with bash in it (basically vilifying certain characters) is a huge sign of author laziness and incompetence. Instead of learning how to better write the character, they instead just portray them as villains to the protagonist even if they never will be so in real life.

Ex. Juvia bashing in NaLu stories.

Ex. "Stupid dead last can't understand that I am an Uchiha elite with the fabled sharingan" - recognize this? Straight up dog feces.

Ex. "How DARE you upstage Sasuke-sama! I bet you cheated to get those Jutsu!" - Sakura bashing in stronger/dark Naruto stories.

Ex. "The weapon hurt Sasuke-sama, it doesn't matter who he is, we must banish him from this village!" - Council bashing.

So for the above examples, bashing is defined as vilifying certain characters or groups of characters to boast the MC. It is done in a way of the victim mentality, often making Naruto be overly punished so he can become OP and return just to be a trench-coat-wearing unlikeable edgelord.

 **Forgotten Fairy** by Zeroexpo13

If you feel like reading the story yourself, do so. If not, then here is a little excerpt of the story:

 _"Can you believe it Maki-chan I get to do my first SS class mission." Said a very excited was 6'1 and around the age of 20 and was quite handsome by how much attention he got from the female population. He wore a black shirt and black pants that were tucked inside his black boots, he was wearing his authentic white trench cloak with black flames highlighting the bottom, This was S class mage, Naruto Uzumaki or better known as the 'Yellow Flash' or as the Demon King of Fairy Tail depending if you're his ally or his foe…_

 _Unknown to the, a shy but beautiful women was walking toward them. She had beautiful black hair that ran down her back, cerulean eyes that give the illusion of staring at the ocean. She wore a porcelain dress that went down to her knees but did not hide her cuvres. She was Emily Keys, A-class mage of Fairy Tail._

 _'Umm N-naru-kun, Maki-kun I came to see you both off." said Emily in her timid tone…_

 _…Makarov blushed deeply when he heard what she said. He was deeply in love with her since she first saw her two years ago…_

 _…"Umm Naruto.." Emily said, unaware of the confession Makarov was going to tell her._

 _"Wha-" Naruto could not finish what he said because a pair of soft lips connected with his, shocking Naruto and Makarov.'…_

 _…Makarov didn't move. His mind was still clouded with the earlier events. He was still angry so he made a hate filled choice. He shot a blast of fire on Naruto's back, shocking Naruto._

 _"I'm sorry Naruto, but I deserve to be the 3rd guild master and to be with Emily." Naruto became shocked by his reason. Makarov turned his back on him. "I will tell them you died valiantly." Makarov took off knowing the demon will attack Naruto first…._

 _"It is as I said, Makarov is the brother that took everything away from me out of jealousy." Naruto continued to stare at the shaking mess of Makarov. Naruto narrowed his eyes at the medal on him. "Everything." Naruto angrily let out as he remember the talk with Master, a few days before the mission."_

Makarov, doing shit like that in jealousy? Are we talking about the same Makarov that would sacrifice himself for his guild? That is calm and collected and is just a kind old man at heart? See how the author makes a good character OOC for the sole purpose of Making the OC named Naruto look better.

Anyways, the author DID make Makarov regretful on doing this, but even in his youth. Makarov wouldn't kill a member of his guild out of jealousy. THEN go sleep with the woman causing her to commit suicide. This is quite OOC for Makarov. Keep in mind, this is A LIGHT bash. You should see some of the darker Naruto fics that plague the fandom.

If you have read this story, basically the first chapter explain the misdeeds done to Naruto. Then he joins Grimoire Heart in which he becomes a trench-coat-wearing asshole (sound familiar?). Then he comes back saying that his mother, Kushina, was a demigod that taught Naruto True God Magic.

Anyways, Bashing is usually a sign of an incompetent author. They are simply too lazy to write a character they dislike the way they are supposed to, and usually, they simply don't. If you are thinking of writing a bash fic, don't. Research the characters you plan to bash, and write your story plot within the confines of such character. Some characters might act differently had the circumstances call for it.

When it comes to bash fics, characters are ALWAYS OOC. Not only that, some bash fics make the characters so one-dimensional in their quest to hinder the main character, that they become victims of 'Flanderization'. If you ARE going to bash a character you don't like no matter what, make sure you keep their character relatively intact. For example, if there was actually an asshole/irredeemable character in canon, then bashing COULD work. Don't simply bash Gray just to make room for that Natsu x Harem you are writing.

 **Lawful-Hero Fics:** Now, when it comes to the protagonist, many times, the OC would normally act like the lawful hero. You know how superman spares his enemies regardless if they are going to kill again?

Interjection: For those of you who are wondering why the superheroes always lets the villain live - it's so the comic authors can keep making issues with the same villains, duh. When something is endlessly illogical even with the story explaining is that so the hero isn't any better than the villain if they kill - it probably has something to do with real life logistics.

Have you ever read a story where the OC is given a morally questionable choice in which to either let the villain live or kill them? Then they spiel the same 'no better than them' cliché shit you have seen a million times in other movies. This decision will almost always bite them in the ass. The lawful good becomes tiring and repetitive especially when you already have a thousand stories all writing like that.

If you are planning to write a proper OC, you need to have them have anti-hero moments. Just to show they are humans, not everybody wants to watch a saint control their revenge over and over. That is commendable, but not relatable.

 **Reader Insert Fics:** I have no idea where these first came from, but they are starting to gain more and more traction on fanfiction. Quotev and Wattpad are FILLED to the brim with reader inserts as well as horrible OCxMale canon. Just going to that website would make Goku scream for 50 episodes just to rupture his own eyeballs.

However, the demographics for those site most likely have a far higher female user count than fanfiction.

 **Newfound Love (Sting Eucliffe x reader)** by Sekata

Now, when it comes to reader inserts, despite the nonsensical setting in which the author tries to write in the point of view of a person they have never met, there is one major issue: the audience.

The reader insert above is an insert about you getting together with Sting. Imagine having a lemon written in that. If you are a non sting shipper or a male reader, you probably wouldn't be interested in such a story.

Some of these reader inserts can be combined with AU's as well. Sometimes rape, master/slave, or hell even scat can be used in reader inserts. I would not recommend even trying to read them if you value your sanity. Hell, some of them are written with such graphics scenes it could make Muslim immigrants in Europe commit to permanent celibacy.

If let's say, a 21 year-old male like me opens up a reader insert and the first line I see is 'you blush wildly as your heart beat faster than before from the alluring stare of the ice make mage,' I would nope my ass straight out of there. I find it difficult to actually emphasize with a character when said character is a badly portrayed version of myself. Some stories are better off written as a OCxCanon instead of a reader insert.

Of course, these can be done somewhat decently. The first thing you should do is make an author's note at the BEGINNING of the first chapter explaining what type of reader you have to be to enjoy the story.

Ex. The Sting x OC story in which you are someone who would want to be in a relationship with Sting.

The second person point of view should be used as you are trying to make it sound as if the reader is doing those things.

 **Yaoi Fics:** When it comes to Yaoi fics, what I hate about it the most is that characters are gay for the sake of self-fulfillment. Natsu and Gray have NEVER shown any gay tendencies and Mashima would never fucking even hint that they're gay considering the teased pairings. I won't even do an excerpt for this because I'm sure people reading don't want to read 300 words of horrible gay smut.

Gay for gay's sake or for being politically correct is better than not gay at all. It's the same in movies how the race of the character makes no different to the plot but they make it a black guy/gay guy just to make their movie seem diverse. It honestly sickens me.

But back to the yaoi, we are looking at horrid portrayals of homosexual sex by teenage girls. Girls who are hormonal, have never had sex, writing about smut when they shouldn't even be old enough to look at porn. This results in something that becomes over fetishized, sensualized, and is generally a piece of shit fic that should just fall into a ravine and decompose into oil so at least it helps the economy.

 **Love's Freedom** by Scarlet Huntress

This is a relatively average example of how Yaoi fics are like. The same traits all play a part in a Yaoi fic. My suggestion is that you research all of the characters first before putting them into a homosexual relationship.

 **Amnesia Fics:** Oh boy, this is the mental orgy make-up fuck fix. Have you ever read a story where the OC doesn't remember who they were to boast the 'mysterious past' part? A mysterious past can only last for so long before it becomes annoying and overly useless. Pasts have to be revealed at the right time otherwise it would no long matter.

If you write an OC with an unknown past and then don't reveal it until Tartaros, people might be like, wait he has a past? It should be revealed within 2-4 arcs and not done at the end of a series which is something that authors tend to do, or sometimes just never reveal it.

When they do this, they often not revealing the past at all and the story just never gets completed.

 **Remembering your past** by Dragonslayer234

When it comes to past revealing, there are various methods to do so.

Ex. OC going to hypnotist, gradual blurring together of memories, recovering from the mental injury that made it happen in the first place, or maybe just never regaining their memories.

However, these types of fics tend to favour the following:

Ex. Dream sequencing, random flashbacks, triggered flashbacks, random OC's from their past showing up.

Now keep in mind, while amnesia fics aren't as bad as the god-like or harem fics, these fics can easily get repetitive or annoying if the author doesn't find a middle ground in which to reveal the past. If the past is revealed instantly in chapter 1, then it loses its value and becomes pointless. If the past is revealed 200,000 words later after 20 arcs, it also loses its value and may even become annoying based on the interactions between the characters and the repeated 'I can't remember you but you can remember me'.

In real life, someone suffering from memory loss will often use hypnosis to help the cope, in which the one hypnotizing will often use triggers related to their life to allow the patient to access their subconscious. What authors of amnesia fics tend to do is just have random items or people show up out of nowhere announced to trigger a massive flash back.

Think of Jellal, he said he regained his memories after a year, did you think it was from 'Oh shit I remember nothing' then Ultear shows him a picture of Erza THEN WOW EVERYTHING REMEMBERED INCLUDING THE TIMES HE MASTURBATED. Probably not. If this WAS the case, I will be under Mashima's bed with a syringe filled with HIV.

In conclusion, this setting CAN work. It is a slippery slope for fanfiction authors as they usually tend to reveal the pasts too early or simply not do it until it becomes irrelevant. The 'pasts' themselves are also often related to the Sue traits without reason. If you are planning to write this fic, get a Beta and plan our your arcs. If you are thinking 'I'm going to write like 10 arcs before revealing it,' don't. If your arc is about 20,000 - 30,000 words each. I would do 2 to 3 arcs before revealing the past at most.

 **Misunderstanding Fics:** Personally, I think misunderstanding fics are extremely annoying as it shows just how petty and immature certain characters can be portrayed as that none of them bothered to communicate properly.

Then again it could just be me because people my age tend to have communication issues. You know, the people that act passive aggressively instead of talking about it? That's number one on the immaturity list for those of you millennials that don't know.

A misunderstanding fic is as it is, the action or the plot of the story is based on a misunderstanding. This is the shit that Disney puts on the kids channel where a fucking girl is pissed off because she thought her best friend didn't give her a birthday party invitation; but then it turns out that the invitation WAS sent but the mail man was a complete fucking drunk and didn't deliver it.

Not only that, misunderstanding fics often tend to leave to bashing to vilify the people who misunderstood the MC, often Natsu in Fairy Tail stories.

Also, misunderstanding fics are SO LUDICROUSLY POPULAR in Naruto fanfictions AND crossovers that it becomes cretinously autistic. This type of story often have so much council, Minato, Kakashi, Sakura, Sasuke, Makarov, Fairy Tail bashing that it's insane. Not only that, Naruto in these stories is always written as an unlikeable unforgiving asshole that talks shit to the bashed WHICH is supposed to make Naruto look good. Like, raging about how they all fucked him over then saying he will never forgive them? How does this make him look good and relatable? Do readers actually go 'YEAH FUCK FAIRY TAIL, GO NARUTO!'

Misunderstanding fics often involve OOC as it is needed to actually create the plot point. Remember what I said about Sue traits and horribleness? If something requires Sue traits or other bad attributes to take place, then it needs to be shoved into a cauldron filled with acid then shot straight into space.

 **A New Natsu** by GUIDix

Here is an excerpt from the story above:

 _"What the hell what was that for ice princess!?" asked a muscular young man of average height with a slightly tan tone, black eyes, and spiky pink-coloured hair as he was sent crashing into a wall by his rival Gray Fullbuster._

 _"You know what you did Natsu! You burnt a whole bunch of dark mages and killed the hostages!" answered a man with spiky black-coloured hair, dark blue eyes, and a toned and muscular body._

 _"What the fuck are you talking about!?" Those punks didn't have any hostages! Tell them Happy." answered Natsu looking at his best friend and adoptive son._

 _"Aye sir! Those guys were completely alone when Natsu trashed them and didn't have any hostages." answered a blue cat with white angel wings and a green backpack…_

 _"You have to believe my Gramps.; I would have known if there were any hostages." said Natsu while looking at the elder man._

 _"Sorry Natsu but the families and the hostages themselves said it was you and their description fits perfectly with your look. So although it pains me to say this you are hereby expelled from Fairy Tail due to hurting innocent civilians during your job. I will ask you go remove your guild mark immediately…_

"Luce you trust me right?" asked Natsu to his friend and teammate.

"J _ust leave Natsu. There is proof it was you so don't try to lie to me. I thought you were a better person that that." answered Lucy with a look of disgust in her face.'_

From what I can tell, Natsu 'killed' innocent civilians and hostages despite him claiming there was no one there (you guys really think Natsu would kill civilians UNLESS it was OOC?).

Then the master just kicks him out because the families AND the hostages themselves said it was Natsu. I assume the author meant families OF the hostages because the hostages are 'dead'.

Makarov wouldn't kick him out just like that. He would get to the bottom of it and consider things such as, I don't know, LYING AND FRAMING? MAYBE THE FUCKING FAMILIES LIED?!

This story required multiple OOC's just to happen. Some characters were also vilified just to make Natsu seem better. Fortunately, some characters actually BELIEVE Natsu like they would in Fairy Tail because, I don't know, THEY'RE A FUCKING FAMILY?

Even Lucy doesn't believe Natsu and she would be the MOST likely person to believe Natsu if such a situation accidentally happen.

Don't give me that 'an author can write anything bullshit', sure, they can, but hitting a pile of shit with a hammer doesn't make it music. It just makes it worse, except to the incompetent. Then again, 'Gucci Gang' is a thing so fuck me right? Hurr hurr 'he's just jealous,' yeah I am pretty autistic and jealous.

Misunderstanding fics CAN be done well. Just simply not if you require unexplained OOC's to make it happen.

Ex. Natsu is fighting a dark mage and then defeats him. However, the dark mage uses an ultimate move that destroys a village and kills innocents. The dark mages dies, leaving no body. However, as Natsu is the only one present, the people and council believe it was him.

Natsu explains this to Fairy Tail when they learned what Natsu has 'done', but they believe him as they are a family. The Magic council threatens to disband Fairy Tail if they do not turn over Natsu, but then Makarov refuses on his life. Then the story's struggle is the guild's quest to prove his innocence.

 **Conclusion:** Essentially, all of these fics can be done properly! Not necessarily well, but they can be written in a way that they are not half-eaten microwave hot dogs thrown into a demolition derby. If you are planning to write a harem or yaoi, the story will probably be varying degrees of shit regardless how good of a writer you are. I would suggest staying away from those two PERIOD.

What some of you may have noticed is that often times, stories will actually combine multiple fics together to create a chaotic mess of self-fulfillment that is a fanfiction. Just like the example, 'A New Natsu' and the ones above, all have elements referring to multiple fics. This is because these fics play with each other and are common tropes in lazy/incompetent authors.

 **Theme for this chapter:** STORIES THAT REQUIRE UNEXPLAINED OOC SHOULD BE CHANGED AT ITS ROOTS.

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 **Chapter 5 Done! Next Chapter - General Advice & Pet Peeves Part I**

 **Guest: You want me to read a 1.7M WORD STORY ON HAREMS? ARE YOU TRYING TO SENTENCE MY WHOLE FAMILY TO DEATH.**

 **Make sure you guys check out my other stories!**

 **Read my profile and join my Trope discussion forums!**

 **[ROTLB: The Birth of the Light Bringer]**

 **[ROTLB: Light of Fairies]**

 **[Chef Ramsay]**

 **[A God's Redemption]**

 **[The Nothing Dragon Slayer's Misadventures in Fairy Tail]**

 **Minipa, out!**


	6. CH6 - General Advice & Pet Peeves Pt1

**Chapter 6 - General Advice & Pet Peeves Part I**

 **Alright guys, before we start, I would like to say this chapter is dedicated to the more mechanical skills used in writing.**

 **Basically this discussion will be dedicated to the deplorable habits of individuals who are not literate enough to write stories properly.**

 **There are some general advice and pet peeves mixed in; however, chapter 8 will mainly be a guide chapter.**

* * *

Many people do this sort of thing, some don't even recognize that it could be a bad thing. Once I tackle these issues and problems. I will show you exactly how to avoid them.

 **Past Revealing:** Ever have an OC come into the guild hall, join, crush blush some girls, then start explaining their magics and their 'tragic past' in front of everyone?

Remember that Warrior of the creator story I used as an example? Well here it is again - it's probably one of the best stories to use as an example as it uses so many Sue traits.

 **Warrior of the Creator: Fairy Tail** by BrxkenArrow

Okay bear with me for this part, this is going to be a longer excerpt from the story:

 _"Anyways, we wanted to know where you learned yours." Gajeel spoke again._

 _"Were you taught by a dragon, or did you have a lacrima implanted?" Natsu asked._

 _"Both, actually." I told them. Their eyes widened as I continued. " My hometown was destroyed by a black dragon some time ago, and I almost died along with the rest of the inhabitants." I started, sighing as I gratefully accepted a refill from Mira. "My Dragon Plasmia, found me clinging in life in the forest. She took me in, healed me, and taught me." I continued, swigging my beer. I really don't like telling this story, but I guess it would be a good idea to share with fellow dragon slayers._

 _"After a few years, she had a Dragon Lacrima implanted into my body, giving me a massive power boost. That's how I came to be as strong as I am today." I explained. They all nodded eagerly, waiting for the story to continue. "One day, she told me she'd have to leave for a while, to sort out some problems with the other dragons. She said I'd have to strike out on my own, as I'd likely not see her for a few years…then she flew off." I sighed sadly._

 _"Is that it?" Natsu asked, disappointment hidden in his shocked tone. I shook my head._

 _"No. A few weeks later, I caught up to her. She was badly injured in a fight against the same black dragon that destroyer my town." My fists clenched around the mug in anger, and my little audience looked somewhat taken aback. "She told me that one day, I would have to face that dragon, else the entire world could be in peril." They let out shocked gasps at that. "Whilst she was alive, she was unable to be saved. She wouldn't die immediately because of her injuries, but she wasn't able to be saved." I gritted my teeth as tears welled up in my eyes. "So she asked me to… she asked me to…" I couldn't go on._

 _"She wanted you to kill her?" Wendy asked in horror, covering her mouth with her hand. I hung my head in shame and nodded._

 _"Even though it was the best thing I could do for her at the same, it still tears me up inside." I said, wiping away my tears. "I couldn't have saved her, I know that. But, I just wish I didn't have to kill her to end her suffering. I wish she could've died in a more peaceful manner." I finished, my hair covering my eyes._

 _"Dear God…" Makarov mumbled in shock, sympathy laced in his tone._

 _"That's terrible." Wendy sobbed._

 _"Man… forced to kill your mom…" Natsu mumbled, rubbing the back of his head._

Keep in mind, this is chapter ONE of the entire story. A random OC just walks up reveals his entire past and gets mental handjobs from the entire guild. Not only that, this is a very common trope. It's either the mysterious past is never revealed or literally everything is spewed out like tomatoes in a broken blender in chapter 1. They do this DESPITE someone who still feels so much pain probably wouldn't tell everything right away to people he has never met. I know I wouldn't. Don't know about the picture perfect author avatar though.

This is actually a repeated trope in OC stories which symbolizes laziness. Instead of developing a past for the OC, they just write 400 words revealing their past then just decide 'meh good enough'.

Pasts could be something that could deepen the relationships with other characters - especially if you are planning on a pairing. Unless your past will make all six million Jews in the holocaust go into a single file line just to give your OC a hug, if so, you should take your OC and throw it into the grinder.

Ex. The OC goes into the guild but then just straight up says, 'Oh it's still a bit painful for me, I'm just not ready to say it yet.' - although if someone that is considered a stranger asks about their pasts, most people would probably just dodge around the question or scream 'LEAVE ME ALONE!' if they are an anti-sue.

If someone pressed on a touchy subject with me, I would probably say something like 'I don't want to talk about it okay?' in a irritated manner.

For those of you wondering how to reveal pasts properly, first remember that the above excerpt is an example of what NOT to do. Pasts are meant to be gradually revealed over multiple arcs, where each reveal should strengthen the relationships between the OC and the characters.

You shouldn't reveal absolutely NOTHING about your character either. Ease it in!

Normally, a good setup would be 1 or 2 chapters explaining the character's backstory briefly before the canon insertion. Writing chapter one where your character goes with Natsu and Lucy to join Fairy Tail should be avoided as that tends to lead to constant flashbacks.

 **Misusing POV (SB):** Here is a little lesson when it comes to using point of views.

What exactly is a 'Point of View' or POV? The point of view in a story is the narrator's position in the description of events, or whoever is telling the story.

Why exactly is a point of view important? This is because your ENTIRE story is told through a point of view, and getting it wrong is one of the story breakiest things you could do.

There are five points of views that you can write in:

First Person \- This is when the story is being told from the main character's perspective. Where scenes without the MC would be UNKNOWN to the MC unless another character told them or they found out through other methods.

In his POV, 'I' is used to refer to the narrator. This means that the character is IN the story, and is telling the events and scenes through their experiences directly.

Some stories do rotate between characters in First Person. However - EXTREMELY FUCKING IMPORTANT -, if you are changing between fifteen million different characters EVERY chapter, consider using a different POV.

The first person POV is meant to deliver a more intimate connection for the reader and the character. Using I could allow the audience to empathize with the character far better than other POV's.

Second Person \- This is when a story is told in 'you'. Where the narrator is the reader itself, OR when it's an expository story such as this one where the author is addressing the reader directly.

*Keep in mind this is NOT a story in the sense where it has a beginning, middle, or end. I call this a story because it is easier than calling it a 'piece', or 'writing.'

Anyways, this POV SHOULD be used in any story where it is a reader insert, this is because you need that POV to actually get the effect that the reader is the MC.

Third Person: Objective \- Third person is when the narrator is not in ANY of the character's point of view. The objective part comes from the fact that the narrator is a neutral, unbiased, observer. NONE of the character's thoughts would be revealed in this POV.

This is similar to a camera. Most movies would be considered third person objective unless there are scenes where the character's thoughts are revealed in a voice-over.

The book 'The Rise of Pancho Villa' by John Reed is in third person objective.

Third Person: Limited Omniscient \- The narrator reports the facts and interprets events from the perspective of a single character. Essentially, the story is written where the MC is addressed by their names, aliases, or by he/she.

All of my stories are written in the third person, where I rotate between limited omniscient and omniscient depending on how many characters are in the scene.

Third Person: Omniscient \- This is a POV where the story is told by an all-knowing god narrator that not only reports, but also interprets the events and reveals the thoughts and feelings of ANY character.

Which means, in the same scene, you could have inner thoughts of multiple characters at once without scene switching or line breaks.

 **Fairy Tail x Reader** by Just-emm24

Despite this being a reader insert, the author used first person to write when it would have been better to write in second person. The author also uses constant POV indicators - if you are writing a reader insert, the POV should not constantly change in between characters. It should be as if you are there yourself, which means you wouldn't know what the other characters are thinking unless they upped and told the OC.

 **Fairy Tail's lost Secret** by Shiki.V

This story constantly switches between character's points of view in the first person. This story would be better if it switched to third person, whether it is omniscient or limited depends on the number of characters. This is especially emphasized as the author has to use POV indicators to tell whose view the story being told in.

To reiterate, 3rd person is for stories with lots of POV changes; first person for a story specifically as if you were experiencing it yourself, and then second person is a story written where you ARE experiencing it yourself - at least how YOU would experience as you can't exactly say for sure how your readers would experience.

 **POV Indication:** Ever see those stories that always have a 'Natsu POV', 'Erza POV', '? POV' markers in the stories?

While this trope is not necessarily as story breaking as bad grammar, this CAN get very annoying very fast. If the paragraph is written well enough, it would be enough to tell that the scene is being written from a certain point of view.

Example Excerpt:

 _The fire dragon slayer was stumped as to what to do. Everyone was already busy with their missions and Lucy was out shopping! Should he go train? Nah, he already did that. What about lunch! Oh wait, he did that too._

So from the random excerpt, I'm sure most if not all of you was able to determine that it was written in Natsu's point of view in the 3rd person. The reason why 3rd person is better because instead of using I, is that you would be using words such as 'Natsu' or 'Son of Igneel' to refer to characters. Making it easier to know whose point of view the scene is being written in, thus removing the need for constant indicators.

Again, this is not story breaking, but if you find yourself doing this, consider switching the point of view your story is being written in.

Keep in mind INDICATING POV's aren't story breaking; misusing them however, is a different story.

 **Random Usage of Japanese Words:** I don't know about you guys, but this shit is something that ANNOYS THE LIVING FUCK OUT OF ME JESUS CHRIST.

Honourifics I can accept even if they are a slight pet peeve, because some characters' speech in the anime would fit using it. It simply sounds better than the English translation. For example, when Lisanna saying Mire-nee, it might be a bit weird if she says 'sister Mira!' like the fuck is she a nun?

Although a better sounding version of this would just be Lisanna calling Mira - 'sis'.

BUT, honourifics is one thing, when I am trying to read a fucking sentence and the dialogue randomly has Romanised Kanji? Then that shit becomes real.

Excerpt of such:

 _"Nani?!" Natsu exclaimed._

 _"Come on it's not like I meant for it to happen, baka!" Lucy replied._

The point of writing fanfiction in English is to make sure it stays in English. While a couple of 'kun' or 'san' won't really hurt. When you start saying shit like the excerpt above then we know have a fucking problem. What is the point of using random Japanese? I'm sorry but this is getting close to weaboo territory, and you don't want to go there.

Now, what is the weaboo language? Japanese is Japanese; you know, Hiragana, Kanji, etc.?

English is English, basically exactly as it is.

The excerpt you saw is a fucking weaboo language. When you randomly mix in common Japanese words or phrases in its Romanised spelling in the middle of a sentence because of how big of a virgin you are.

I'm sure many writers do this because they see other writers do this. I'm pretty confident the majority of tropes were started by maybe a couple dozen writers.

The next part is the Japanese move sets. When it comes to writing spells, author tends to want to write their spells in Japanese, despite everything else being English.

Is this some sort of Germanic spell chant? Am I speaking to Jelani the Hoodoo Tumblrina? Do characters randomly switch language when they are doing spell moves? No? Then why is it being written this way? If Natsu is using the fire dragon's roar, write it as it is: Fire Dragon's Roar. I personally also like to use underlines to write spell/move names so people can see it easier.

Here is an excerpt from my own works in terms of spacing and spell underlining.

 _' Twenty-four Light Rods!' he cast silently, twenty-four beams of his magic all manifesting around them before rocketing towards the demon's midsection._

You shouldn't write the spell name as Karyu no Hoko in the middle of the story because it just becomes weird. Not everyone knows even a bit of Japanese, and even IF they did, it would throw off the pacing.

Do not do this ESPECIALLY if you are making up moves yourself. What tends to happen is that authors begin google translating and then control copying what comes up even if it is not necessarily correct. It only makes it SLIGHTLY better if you have a translation of the spell in brackets beside the Japanese. The Japanese should just not be there period.

Previous Excerpt - cancerfied:

 _' Niiju Yon Hiroddu' he cast silently, twenty-four beams of his magic all manifesting around them before rocketing towards the demon's midsection._

I don't even know if that's fucking right; but, because I'm not Japanese, I wouldn't know.

Honourifics: What exactly are honourifics? They are suffixes that Japanese people use after someone's name. Often indicating the relationship between the two people.

Etc. san - is a respectable way to address someone, often a stranger or even just someone with a higher position.

Etc. sama - can be translated to 'lord' or 'master'. This is used to address authority figures holding far more power than the user.

Now, MANY fanfiction authors tend to use honourifics in their story. Many will also use common Japanese terms such as Tou-san, or Ka-san.

The reason, I believe, that people do this is because somebody started this trend. Then other fanfiction authors who are looking to write their own stories use the other fanfiction stories as inspiration, and often times, a standard.

 **Summaries:** When it comes to summaries, authors fail to realize just how important this is. When readers scroll through the countless thousands of fanfiction, what are the three things they see first? Title, title picture, and the summary. Summaries SHOULD be something that reveal enough of the plot of your story without spoiling. It should also be something written to catch the interest of readers.

Many authors tend to put pairings, story type, etc., in the summaries.

Ex. Natsu x Lucy, Jerza, Gruvia, !God-like Natsu, etc.

Although not story breaking, such information should not be put in the summary itself! It is better off in an author's note in the beginning of the story, that way the flow of the summary is not broken! Doing this can easily attract readers who are LOOKING for specific fics like that, but pairings should be put in the chapters itself ESPECIALLY if the story has not reached the point where the characters actually get together.

 **The Royal Guard Mages** by Justhereforkicks246

Below, is the summary of the story above.

 _'This Story is Crossover of Bleach, Fairy Tail, Naruto, and One piece that takes place in the Fairy Tail universe. Follow the adventures of the Fairy Tail versions of Ichigo, Naruto, and Luffy. Pairings are undecided. Not the best summary. Also My **grammar** is not that great.'_

While the first part of the summary isn't bad, as it simply gives an introduction on the story and tells the readers where the main focus is, the real issue begins after that portion.

Pairings are undecided: Although not summary breaking, this is better put into the author's note section of the story. The reason being is that it throws off the flow of the summary. Any sort of exposition by itself should be in an author's note.

Not the best summary: This is actually quite a common trope of fanfiction authors to mention their own lack of skill in writing a summary.

Why? If you have a shit summary, then rewrite it over and over again until it's good! This is sign of lazy writing in which the author decides 'fuck it', and just puts a message after their horrible summaries as a shit fix prevention - will cover this later. If you are going to be this stupid, you might as well take Irena Sandler's shoe and beat a bunch of Jewish kids to death.

Also my grammar is not that great: Again, is there a reason to mention this? Why would you warn your readers that your grammar is not that great? Is this to put a back fall for yourself so people cannot call you out for it? As in 'you know my grammar sucks so don't comment on it because I warned you'.

This is even worse because you are actively trying to avoid constructive criticism. Nobody would purposely write with bad grammar, and they normally add this to the summary after multiple people have commented on their bad grammar. Then, instead of fixing sad bad grammar, the authors simply put some assorted garbage such as that as they are too lazy to fix their grammar. This one particular author from the story mentioned above have been updating 100k+ words without changing their grammar.

Such laziness is unwelcome when it comes to writing. I will say time and time again that 'I can write whatever they want' is not a viable excuse for shit. People can also 'say whatever they want', so if people ARE criticizing your story. Don't simply self-roast to prevent people form insulting you, find out WHY they are criticizing your story IF it is valid criticism and not just empty slanders.

Here is a review from chapter 1 as an example of how you SHOULD react.

 **Lordphoenex10:** Can you please follow your own advice and get a beta reader for this. Almost every chapter has incorrect grammar, even worse is your overuse of sentence additions that add no value to the fanfiction help story you have going on. Every time I see "that gave me autistism" it completely derails the actually good advice and forces me to question if you actually know what you're talking about since autism isn't something you spontaneously gain, it's not a disease it's a mental disability heck in some mild forms it can be beneficial. Don't overstate things with hyperbole it might've been cute in the first paragraph-it isn't anymore. If you want a beta who can add to this commentary I'd be willing to help, this has a lot of potential and your detailing of Mary Sues was amazing. However, at least in my opinion it's not reaching it's full potential.

You might be thinking, why am I putting this lengthy review here? What purpose does this serve? I'm not going to judge him as a user but rather in regards to his comments about my usage of autism and hyperboles, as well as his comments about my grammar.

So for those of you who have the same opinion, my vulgar examples are my own sense of humour. It's completely fine if you don't find it funny. However, I'm not going to take it off simply because other people disagree with me. I respect your opinion but I won't change what I have because of it. Of course, if something a reader says makes me realize 'oh shit he's right', then it's time to rewrite.

When lordphoenix10 made the comment about my grammar, I could have easily told him to fuck off or just said fuck it and put 'bad grammar in chapters.' Instead of that, I simply followed his advice, then reread all my chapters after about a month. This is so I can find more errors that I may have skipped. It's taking me anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour every chapter just to reread it meticulously, but it's worth it.

Almost every chapter, I found dozens of missing words, missing punctuation, sentences that don't make sense, and more. I'm sure even after this proofreading session, there would be mistakes I have missed. I do hope that the rectifications would make reading the story easier for newcomers.

Now, some of you might be thinking, why are you telling us this, are you trying to place yourself on a pedestal by acting mature? If you think that way, that's fine. My main purpose of saying things such as 'I write for content and because I want to, not for reviews', is because for the rare moments where a reader thinks 'maybe I should start rereading my own stories as well!'

In fact, when readers actually take my advice to heart and strive to better themselves, then that's that. Even if it's just fanfiction, if you acknowledge your mistakes and learn from them, you will take that attitude towards your life and be happier as a result.

Anyways, moving on.

Self-roasting: What exactly is self-roasting? If you are between the ages of 12-20, you probably know what it is. Have you ever been insulted/roasted so much by your friends or peers because of something considered a flaw? Instead of actively trying to fix the flaws (if they are fixable of course like being a fatass), you simply roast yourself to deny the satisfaction and temptation of others doing it. Trust me, I know this feeling and I'm sure many of you reading will too.

By calling yourself out on your own flaws, you prevent others from doing so. This is an outward projection of your own insecurities, similar to how many mistreated children become jocks or chads. Instead of self-roasting your ability to write summaries and in correct grammar, you should strive to better yourself. Improve on grammar and summary writing until nobody can say it is bad. When your story is filled with good reviews where the few bad ones are simply people who are a little aggressive in voicing their disagreement, then you are at a decent place. When you no longer give a reason to other people to insult you, anyone else who does is simply projecting their own insecurities and their own low sense of self worth onto you.

Why should you not do this? If you put it in the summary that you are not good at writing summaries, what does that say for your story? Again, self-roasting is a common tactic for insecure individuals to lower the temptation for others to insult them. Of course, this could be quite funny if used correctly (saying you are bad at summaries is not a reason to laugh at all). If you are good at writing, good at summaries, and good at grammar, then there will be no need as any insult wouldn't touch you. Calling yourself out to prevent others from calling you out isn't a good tactic.

Here are some examples of the reviews for the above story. Keep in mind, many readers actually choose to IGNORE grammar mistakes, if the plot is GOOD AS FUCKING BAGGED MILK then even I, can skip some bad grammar. I would say only about 20-30% of fanfiction will actively avoid stories with bad grammar, and even a lower percentage of that will call people out on them.

 **TitansLegion:** Horrible. The first thing you need to know about writing a story is when someone new is talking always start a new line and the way you do that is by pressing enter. It will make everything look better and people will start to read it.

 **ShadowJab17:** The grammar was so bad I couldn't continue past the 10th paragraph or use Spell Check before you post chapters.

After reading a couple paragraphs in, I began to notice many missing periods, wrong tenses, wrong pronouns, as well as run on sentences. Now, my own story 'A God's Redemption' was called out on having bad grammar. So, instead of putting 'grammar is bad' in the summaries. I began rereading every single chapter, word for word, so I can correct it. In chapter four alone, I found 20+ errors. I'm sure the author added the bad grammar due to the self-roasting definition I explained before, after those two caught his grammar (they were two of the first reviews).

MANY people fall into this trap. Remember what I said about the 300k+ word rewrites? When a story is already past 30,000 words, it becomes very daunting to have to fix that story. Instead of doing so, many authors decide 'fuck it' and just keep writing despite losing readers. REMEMBER, doesn't matter how many POTENTIAL readers authors lose, if they are still getting readers, there will not be a need to change. This is similar to how going vegan won't stop meat production until 80-90% of the population abstain from eating meat.

When it comes to writing, it is very easy to miss countless small mistakes as you have been writing/reading the same chapter for a while. Even if you proofread it multiple times, your mind begins to subconsciously ignore it. I was only able to find the errors because I had a fresh mind going in, as I have not read my own chapter for months. Don't be down! Everyone makes these errors. I'm sure in this discussion, I have some missed words as well despite catching more and more every reread! If someone calls them out, I will go back to the chapter right away to fix it. However, I do admit the word tenses are not important to me in this discussion as it is mainly expository.

Now, since there are more things about summaries to cover, I will be using more stories as examples.

 **Love story** by Animelover9898

 _'This is my first fanfic and I am really bad at summaries. Please read and review._

This is my first fanfic: An expansion of the quick definition in the Mary Sue traits, this is a phrase that many younger authors tend to use, especially when writing the story for the first time. The reason I say that is because, some people will say 'this is my second fanfic', 'third', etc.

Why do people do this? It is simple, people writing their first story want people to read their stories. They don't know what to expect in terms of traffic, and they may get daunted by the fact that their story isn't getting as much traffic as they want. Instead of being patient, rewriting their summary, or simply keep updating, they try everything they can to bring traffic.

Authors have to realise, that, saying 'this is my first fanfic' can actually act as a deterrent for readers. Especially if they are looking for grammatically correct stories. If you're going to be desperate to get traffic, you might as well write a OOCNaruto x Harem.

My advice to you, is NOT put such things in your summary. Put important information if needed such as Book 5/7 if you are helping readers navigate between books of the same series of stories.

So all in all, the summary should be a short but comprehensive recap of your story. Any necessary information such as AU, pairings, !darkerNatsu notes, etc., should be in the author's note of the story.

Please read and review: A similar tactic to the above, the phrase 'please read and review' are used by amateur authors that are not patient enough to wait for traffic.

Although this it not as daunting as the 'first fanfic' bullshit. It still puts you as some sort of beggar for views. IF your story is good, readers will come. If you just so happen to write a story in an unpopular setting, then you just have to wait. Naruto x harem stories can get hundreds of followers within weeks while OC stories may get a tenth or even less. You HAVE to get rid of the delusion thinking how hard you work is proportionate to how much you deserve. This is true, whether in life, in story writing, or anything else in general.

I'll admit, I put something similar in my own story when I first published it about a year ago (I forgot what exactly). However, after realizing it didn't really do anything and the fact I didn't have a lot of traffic was because my story was simply in an unpopular setting, I removed it.

Don't make yourself seem like some sort of desperate beggar like a 2/10 putting on 10 pounds of make up on their Instagram accounts.

 **Broken Circle** by Cuervo Blanco

 _'When I met her, I knew that my circle was completed." **Summary** inside._

Another pet peeve is 'Summary Inside.' While it is not as story breaking or irritating as the above sections, putting the summary inside the chapters itself normally points to unnecessarily long summaries that COULD spoil the story. You should not write your summaries like a Hollywood trailer that outlines the best part of the movie. Summaries should be written in a way that tell the readers where the focus is going to be, and what's the premise of the story. Those two aspects can easily be written in a way to fit inside the limited character count of the summary box.

 **University of Magnolia** by NinjaSpider

 _'Natsu moves into a new dorm at his university and finds the freshman who shares the room with him to be a very fun person to mess with. At least, that's how it was at first. Warning: This is a yaoi(boyxboy) don't like don't read. The characters are kinda OOC so beware. The cover belongs to Twilishady. It's used with permission.'_

Here is another BIG one that plagues the summaries of first-time writers and prepubescent minds.

 **Don't Like Don't Read:** The reason why I bolded this like a separate section is just how much this particular phrase frustrates me. More so, than don't flame, and everything above. I searched up this phrase with Fairy Tail filters, and most if not all were horribly written Yaoi stories with smut. Unleash your imagination =/= unleash your fucked up fetishes.

The phrase itself makes me want to drink frank's hot sauce through my urethra from how much it triggers me. When you write shit, and you KNOW you write shit, but change nothing despite MANY people telling you the faults. It's difficult I know, hell even one of the reviewers said it was and told me to please try.

They KNOW how difficult it is and have probably been flamed by authors they reviewed before.

Here is a list of ten stories and their summaries that are victims of above:

 **Secret** by HitsugayaYuki11

 _'Natsu sighed. He knows this will be happen. Slowly, he whispered something in her ear. "Keep this as a secret". Lucy opened her eyes. "...If I don't?"."You will get a punishment". Can Lucy keep his secret? NaxLu. **Grammar** suck. Review please'_

 **It's a gay world** by Blacks Nature

 _'Magnolia, a city were most of the population is gay or lesbian. Hopefully an unlikely pair will realize their hidden feelings for each other. Yes its a terrible summary check it out before you judge. Yaoi **don't** **like** **don't** **read**. NatsuxGray one sided StingxNatsu. Reviews are needed!'_

 **Lovestruck** by anne nee

 _'its my first ever fan fiction ...sorry for wrong **grammars** and summaries...but please review!'_

 **The Night of Autumn Sky** by Ara Ritsuki

 _'(My first fanfic)This is the other side of the minstrel. Oh well, this is OOC Rufus Lore Ps,sorry for the **grammar** and R.E.V.I.E.W'_

 **Hispters Discontinued** by Moi-Master

 _'I've lost interest in this story. If you still wish to read, I warn you that it contains horrible **grammar** , and a horrible plot.'_

 **Another Night** by Ara Ritsuki

 _'Well, this is my second story. I can't stop making poems since RPing as Rufus... so here's the second. P. for the **grammar** , OOC Rufus, Don't forget to give your R.E.V.I.E.W'_

 **Christmas's Eve** by Ara Ritsuki

 _'The memories about his 'mademoiselle' made Rufus became such a melancholy guy. Yet, he's still missed her. No matter what. /Sorry for grammar, please review.'_

 **Undercover Model (Discontinued)** by Moi-Master

 _'I have lost interest in writing this story. If you still wish to read this short, crappy story, then I warn you that it contains horrible grammar.'_

 **Lost Memories (discontinued)** by Moi-Master

 _'This story has gone discontinued. As the author of this story, I warn you. It contains bad grammar. The plot has scattered, and it doesn't even make sense anymore. If you still wish to read it, I did give you a fair share of my warning. :,)'_

 **How if? Meredy Story in English** by Keindahaha

 _'TRANSLATED FROM INDONESIAN. Meredy, a mage from Grimoire Heart, joins to Fairy Tail and found her missing identity. WARNING : WRONG SPELLINGS & **GRAMMARS**. Mind to R&R?'_

Seeing the summaries above, I noticed some authors actually have a pattern of writing summaries such as the ones mentioned in the sections above. Instead of fixing their errors, they simply start writing a new story, give up, then become lazy and abandon it. I can understand as many young authors lack patience and are rather impulsive. This results in authors with 20+ 1,000 word stories that are all unfinished.

Now, I can't really give example summaries or fix summaries of other stories unless I read them from start to finish. I won't be able to do this with shorter stories either, especially if they are incomplete. If you would like examples however, you can have a look at the summaries I wrote for my own stories. They might not be perfect, but I try to follow my own system and rewrite them if they could be better.

 **Conclusion:** The technicalities section isn't a section similar to the Mary Sue Traits. All of these SHOULD be avoided. This is no opiniated subject where one can't be wrong. No, if it's wrong, then it's wrong. It's not about perspective in this case; if you are writing a story, you should follow the RULES, NOT GUIDELINES, of writing before doing anything.

Like I said before, it is understandable you would miss some words, get wrong tenses, wrong pronouns, etc., every once in a while. Some Betas may even miss these! If someone points it out to you, you should fix it right away instead of ignoring constructive advice.

 **Theme of the Chapter:** You are not the best writer in the world. Recognize that fact and improve on it.

*I'm MINIPA THE BEST GOD DAMN WRITER IN THE WORLD - those who disagree with me can probably agree that's my best joke yet :)

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 **Chapter 6 Done! Next Chapter: General Advice & Pet Peeves Part II**

 **Make sure you guys check out my other stories!**

 **Read my profile and join my Trope discussion forums!**

 **[ROTLB: The Birth of the Light Bringer]**

 **[ROTLB: Light of Fairies]**

 **[Chef Ramsay]**

 **[A God's Redemption]**

 **[The Nothing Dragon Slayer's Misadventures in Fairy Tail]**

 **Minipa, out!**


	7. CH7 - General Advice & Pet Peeves Pt2

**Chapter 7 - General Advice & Pet Peeves Part II**

 **Decided to change the name of the chapter because it was less technicalities and more pet peevish.**

* * *

 **Out of Character:** Out of character, or OOC, is a common mistake…scratch that. A VERY COMMON mistake that involve the incorrect portrayals of canon characters. This happens in bashing fics, Mary Sue fics, harem fics, and Naruto crossover fics especially.

Seriously, why are Naruto Crossovers filled with OOC Naruto's that are also Mary Sue and harem? Why are there authors that thrive on horrible grammar stories containing OC's with Naruto's face slapped on them?

I won't even put an excerpt as an example because there are simply far too many stories that do this. It would take more than a couple paragraphs or hell, pages, to accurately portray the OOCness. Actual bloody hell, there are more examples of this than McDonalds in America. I'm not kidding, out of the 1,000,000+ stories, I'm betting 20% of them fits in this category. There are what, 20,000 McDonalds?

Continuing on, as I mentioned in previous parts of the discussion, OOC tends to happen when authors want to force a certain plot but cannot find a way to make it happen.

Ex. Leaving stories, Darker stories, stronger stories, shipping stories in general, inexperienced writing, etc.

Instead of making a realistic plot that can fit within the confines of canon, authors bend the rules of canon to their will and pump up garbage not even a starving pig would consume.

Of course, OOC could just be the writer simply not knowing.

HOWEVER, some authors know what certain characters are supposed to be like, ex. Writing Lucy perfectly but then writing a horribly bitchy Lisanna. Then, they decide to say 'fuck it' then just straight up ruin another character.

OOC can EASILY be fixed by studying the character a bit more, having notes on what the character is like and what is within the realm of acceptable changes in personalities due to differing backstories and/or events. At the very minimum, search the fan wiki and look at the personality section. If you are unsure of how exactly a character will react, a beta is always a backup answer! A beta that has written multiple stories for Fairy Tail often know what they are doing - unless they wrote a huge line up of trash harems and incomplete NaLu's then you should avoid them.

 **The Dragon Slayer of Light** by Shadow Knight Destroyer

This is a good example of a INO (In name only) OOC Naruto. Naruto was born in Acnologia's era, where he and Sasuke are dragons and gods respectively. There was no prior indication of Naruto being sent to Fairy Tail from Konoha, nor was there any sign of combining both worlds. The only things worthy to be a crossover would be the NAMES of Naruto characters. Naruto doesn't even use his trade marked moves!

OOC can be done WELL if the reason for OOC is explained properly. Characters that are nice and then act like Satan himself in their story without any sort of build up is just horrible writing. If you decide to change the backstory of a certain character, that different setting COULD explain why the character acts differently. Ex. If Lisanna never went to Edolas, Mirajane might still be rebellious instead of nice.

 **Specific In-Name-Only OOC:** You are probably thinking, what exactly is this term?

Have you ever read story, where someone is SO OOC, it makes you wonder, just why exactly is the name of the canonical character being used? The canon character and the character in the story become two COMPLETELY separate entities where a reader wouldn't be able to see ANY resemblance other than their names or key appearances.

For this section, it will be dedicated to the Naruto crossovers, in which an OC that looks like Naruto, uses Naruto's abilities and uses Naruto's name goes into the Fairy Tail universe and sometimes not even the first two. Of course, there are stories that are OOC in Fairy Tail as well, but none more prevalent than Naruto Crossovers. Then I will talk about WHY exactly they are OOC and why the authors refuse to change, as well as ignore feedback.

Let's go!

Many times, authors will write a story in which Naruto is in a crossover. When that happens, they often change his backstory to fit with their idea. However, these changes are often so drastic that the characters no long have any similarities to their canonical counterparts other than the fact they share names.

Of course, this is the more extreme examples of INO characters. Usually what happens, is that the author is simply too incompetent to portray the character correctly. They simply have an idea 'Hey what if Naruto had the Rinnegan and every single bloodline, became the all-slayer omni god, then got sent to Fairy Tail!', then they rush through it, eager to post it on Fanfiction. Not only that, these authors have no long term perseverance, meaning that these stories will often get updated for a month with about 20,000-40,000 words, then abandoned permanently with maybe one random chapter every year.

Naruto INO crossovers honestly need to stop happening, period. Barely any of them give a proper backstory as to WHY Naruto is OOC. He simply is. Naruto is often flanderized to a character that is ramen-loving chan-using genki shonen friend protector, and those are the MILD ones. The OOCness could just be an OC using Naruto's name.

The way he is portrayed just seems how a guy who want to be like in their dreams. Then they write the harem as if Naruto was a self-insert story. Wish-fulfillment multiplied by incompetent writing is by far, the most autistic thing since autism itself. MANY fanfiction as well as canon stories are self-fulfillment. You know, the part where a writer wants to escape reality? HOWEVER, these guys actually know what the fuck they're doing, so they don't end up pumping all the resources straight from shit mountain.

Self-fulfillment by itself is completely fine, many of my stories are written that way. However, you should still follow the basic guidelines of building a story and/or character.

ANOTHER thing about this type of story, is the Naruto born in another world version of a crossover. Naruto being born in another world, 99% of the time, are NOT related to Naruto Uzumaki of Konoha, Ashura reincarnation, or the Seventh Hokage in ANY way. Some of them have different parents where the authors couldn't even just sneak in Minato and Kushina. Many of them have random abilities of the world they are born in and do not act like Naruto in anyway. MANY of these stories, is an orphan Naruto being found by a dragon or god in the case of Fairy Tail crossovers.

Keep in mind, some stories where the two worlds are merged together using Earthland as the dominant world are on Fanfiction. When authors 'merge' the two worlds by taking one or two characters and a magic slightly resembling Naruto COULD be okay if he is not completely OOC. You don't need to make him a copy of his fucking 12 year-old mentally impaired self, Naruto can be like his adult self who is more mature.

Hell, you could write a crossover when Naruto is already the seventh Hokage, so we know he has a wife, meaning no trash harems, and we know he is actively trying to get back to his world because of his responsibility as Hokage.

 **Why INO?**

Now, other than simply being an actual monkey, what other reason could people have to write in-name-only or INO characters? Simple, views. Yes, views. When someone writes an OC story, they can just change the fucking names to Naruto or Minato and they make their appearance as such. Some people have actually commented that my OC story has similar aspects to Naruto, does that mean I am going to make him Naruto? No. Because he IS NOT fucking Naruto.

If you are writing an OC story, then replacing his fucking name with Naruto, THEN YOU BETTER HOPE PUTIN WILL COME SAVE YOU, YOU RUSSIAN HACKER. This is beyond malevolent. You make Vlad the Impaler look like some saint giving cookies to the homeless. Doing this just to get more traffic, as the name 'Naruto' allows you to get 10x more traffic for writing the same story.

Yes, this is true. I half-assed the Madara story, it was RIDDLED with grammar errors despite me now working to fix it, and it was way more popular than the stories I put more effort in. Keep in mind, I tried to keep Madara in character for the most part, but if I wrote a Naruto story with the same premise, and made him the son of some random dragon, it would have gotten 100+ favourites in less than a month.

Do you know why this is bad? Not just for everyone else, but for you? When you start to write for attention ONLY, and not for the sake of the story, then the story becomes worse and worse. Not only that, when you get thousands of reviews and followers, every other one after becomes empty and irrelevant since you don't have the drive to finish your story; it will simply become abandoned, just like the many crossovers out there.

Ever wonder why there are so many stories that are harem or just badly written in general that never get updated? Or rather where many non-harem stories still get updated regularly despite being published years ago where many has 1/10 of the favourites? This is because the people writing actually enjoy the story they are writing. They aren't just like OMG IF I WROTE THIS OC WITH 10 GIRLS IN A HAREM WOULD BE SO COOL THEN I'M GOING TO UPDATE EVERY DAY BUT ABANDON AFTER 2 WEEKS AND MAYBE UPDATE ONCE YEAR. No. The people who write good stories do it for themselves, sure, reviews and feedbacks are great, but they don't do it JUST to see people say OMG MOAR UPDATTTTE PLZ PLZ PLZ UPDATE.

Now, what exactly am I achieving with writing a ranty part about In Name Only characters? Obviously, I'm not going to write a guide on how to write an OC that is named Naruto or whatever the fuck fandom the monkeys want to shit on. BUT, the point is that now you know why authors write these stories and just why you shouldn't. It will drag you down a spiral of writing for views then giving up the story because it lost the spark that got you starting in the first place.

Basically, all in all, in fanfiction and also in life, don't do things ONLY for materialistic gains, you will feel empty and unsatisfied, period.

 **Dream sequences:** Now, when it comes to exposition, there are many ways to go upon it.

Ex. Characters telling characters, a huge line of dialogue explaining, the OC reading a book, or maybe just gradual explanations.

However, a VERY common method of exposition, or even just giving the motivation to a main character, is through a random dream sequence. Dream sequences is a technique that can EASILY be incorporated to ANY setting. Think about it, you can easily say that the MC was high as fuck when they dreamt of that shit, or even just don't bother explaining it. It's not like anyone else dreams of detailed missions given to them by a dead parent with no premises on how, right? Right?

Anyways, when authors don't really know how to build the premise of the story, or even just to provide important plot points, they randomly add in a dream sequence that tells the MC 'what you just must do'.

I am not necessarily against dream sequences, but ones done without build up in the middle of a chapter with no prior indication, is a problem.

Dream sequences are also a commonly used plot device in amnesia fics. Where the character will go through a dream to reveal some of their memories, often unprepared.

 **Author's Notes**

Ah, author's note. When we need to speak directly with our readers, or to give them information on what is going on with the story or with updates.

Author's notes are a good tool to have if you are having a hiatus, taking a break from updating, or perhaps even asking the readers questions to engage them.

However, despite the reasons mentioned above, here are some things MANY authors tend to repetitively write in author's notes, despite some of them being nonsensical or cretinous in nature.

 **Author's note in the middle of chapter (SB):** Sometimes, the author will put a bolder author's note in the middle of the chapter to explain some of their thought processes or to make a joke, similar to how Deadpool breaks the 4th wall to address the audience.

Keep in mind, in a serious story, the author's note break the pacing and the mood, therefore it should only be done in comedies or crack fics.

 **Fairy Tail's Chaos Dragon Slayer** by Omegas790.

If you use other anime characters to compare to your own OC, people will have to stop reading, even in between chapters, just to search the image the OC is being compared to.

Here is an excerpt for the Fairy Tail's Chaos Dragon Slayer descriptions:

' _It was a beautiful night, the moon was shining in the sky, and the snow gently fell to the ground. That night a small boy with pale skin, purple eyes, and white hair which spikes downwards in all directions._

 ** _(A/N: Think Izayoi Sakamaki from Mondaiji tachi ga Isekai Kara Kuru So Desu Yo?)_**

 _He was wearing a dark purple t-shirt, black shorts, and black boots. He also had a black dog tag chain with a single black dragon scale at the end. The most notable thing about this boy though is that he's lying underneath the wing of a giant black dragon._

 ** _(A/N: Like Goku's Boots except they have dark purple accents and they hug close to the leg and In terms to drayko's necklace I'm just going to refer to it as a dragon scale pendant throughout the story)_**

 _This boy is Drayko Vermilion a chaos dragon slayer and he was laying next to his mother the chaos dragon Chaosia underneath her wing. "Hey mom can you sing me that song again tonight?" Drayko asked. **"Fine I'll sing but you promise to go to sleep afterwards."** She replied smiling and he nodded, then she begins to sing.'_

Here is another excerpt from this story which uses AN's in the middle of the chapter quite often:

 _'Mirajane even got Drayko to change his outfit. Now he wears a blue short sleeve t-shirt underneath a black jacket, black pants, black boots, a black waist cape, and black fingerless gloves along with his dragon scale pendant. He even calls it his signature look now._

 ** _(AN: Jacket: Think of the jacket Grimmjow from bleach wears except it's black; Boots, Pants, and Waist Cape: Think archers from fate/stay night only black)_**

 _Emily now wears a blue tank, black skirt, blue thigh-length leggings, and black boots that stop inches above the ankles. She also has her hair tied into a ponytail held by a violet ribbon and she wears a blue dragon scale necklace that Drayko gave her it has a magic casted on it that lets her find Drayko no matter where he is and vice versa.'_

Not everyone knows who Grimmjow or Izayoi is, especially people who recently started watching anime. If the reader doesn't already know what the author is talking about, then they would have to google the characters just to see. Not only that, they don't necessarily know if the picture they found is the actual clothing the character is wearing as some characters (not necessarily Grimmjow) have different sets of attire.

Let's face it, if you're going to ignore me and simply do it anyway, you have to make sure whatever you are referencing to is understood by ALL characters. This is honestly quite impossible because there is no single fandom that EVERYBODY reading your story knows. I'm sure there are people who have no idea who the fuck Naruto or Goku is. If you are going to use a reference, clothing especially, it is easier to just put a link in the author's notes AFTER the actual chapter. Unless of course, the character you're describing is so irrelevant that they won't appear for the rest of the story after the first description.

And yes, you don't need to describe every fucking tree and unimportant scrub the main character meets or sees.

 **Play Wright AN:** Although this is a pet peeve of mine, I can say with confidence that I am not the only one, or frankly even a thousand that hate seeing these in stories.

Ever seen those stories where the beginning and end author's notes if actually the author 'TALKING' to the characters as if they were acting in some sort of play?

Bullshit excerpt:

 ** _Minipa: So what do you think of the chapter?_**

 ** _Lucy: I don't know, I think I wouldn't have said things like that!_**

 ** _Minipa: Really? Hey Erza what do you think?_**

 ** _Erza: That was good, everyone was in characters and…_**

 ** _Natsu: I didn't have enough screen time, AARGH!_**

 ** _Erza: Natsu…calm down._**

 ** _Natsu: AYE SIR!_**

HOLY bombastic MR. BIGGY CHEESE on a hotdog with mustard, THAT was some sort of brain damage at its finest! I see this sort of shit in every fandom I find myself in: Bleach, my hero academia, Dragon Ball, Naruto, literally everything! I dare you guys to find a fandom with 1000+ stories where there is not a SINGLE one without some sort of play wright AN.

Where did this even come from? Using script form dialogue to explain an author's note instead of an actual author's note. Like do the readers actually imagine the characters talking to the screen while they say 'SEE YA NEXT CHAPTER?!'

Of course, during weird cancerous author's notes where author's notes are SUPPOSED to be is not story breaking. They don't really affect the contents of the chapter and is just something that is mildly annoying.

 **Not an Update Chapter** : Again, this is more pet peevish as doing this is not story breaking. However, this is sometimes on the level if In Name Only characters in terms of being a mockery of ethics.

 **The Lightning King Raijin** by the Shadow Knight Destroyer

I will be taking two consecutive chapters from the story above. Both of which are author's notes - NOT an actual chapter. Many authors will actually warn the reader that it is not an actual chapter despite the obviousness of the fact. There are multiple reasons people do this and I will be going over them shortly.

Chapter 27 Excerpt: (PLEASE READ)

 _'I will be taking some time off from FanFiction, I do not know how long depending how I am feeling but I wI'll be for some time. I may update one or two stories now and again but I will most likely continue my regular updating by December or by next year. While off I think I'll be using my free time too be working on stories that are not yet finished like the Magi story I'm currently working on as well as work on my regular stories too.'_

Yes, instead of a story chapter, the update popping into the followers' emails will be this short one hundred word paragraph telling them WHY the story they are following will not be updating.

You know that feeling when a story finally comes out and you are like 'OH BOY I get to find out what happens next!' However, instead of finding out what happens next, your hopes and dreams are shattered and you get this garbage paragraph explaining what happened.

Of course, some people might ACTUALLY be interested in what is going on with the author. I for one, do not care if their parents dead even if I say 'oh I'm sorry for that' or 'my deepest condolences.' Seriously, I can understand social cues and what you're supposed to say in situations like the fucking Victorian England dinner parties or whatever the fuck, but I can't really give two shits about dead people who I don't really know.

Now, some of you might remember I actually did an non-update author's note chapter for my Madara story. Well, I deleted it because I realized how retarded it was and put the message in the author's note section of the next chapter, which is what you SHOULD be doing.

ANYWAYS, a chapter like this is already something that is considered disgusting. HOWEVER, the next chapter would tickle your balls till they drop.

Chapter 28 Excerpt: (SERIOUS AN)

Brace yourselves, this is a long one. Skip if tl:dr but it's better if you do or else you might not understand the level of cancer I am describing. The AN is also put into massive blocks of text so I will be splitting the paragraphs to make it easier to read, other than that, everything will be a copy from the chapter. Yes, this author posted two consecutive author's note chapters.

 _'Hello everyone, this authors note is too tell you what's been happening over the past several months. Basically during these past few months I have been dealing with Anxiety and Depression which was the reason why I went on break from Fanfiction since I had no inspiration in writing new chapters for my stories but during the month I got better and was able too update some stories but sadly I stopped again due too experiencing it once again._

 _Right now I'm doing better but it made me think a lot. I don't know as of year what I'm completely planning too do but I still need too focus more on getting better as well as of right now the prototype stories I've been working on have been cancelled by me except for a Next Gen bakugan story I'm considering doing and an Iron-Blooded Orphans fanfic which would use parts from the canceled Gundam story._

 _Anyways, right now I'm considering of letting go of stories such as Akuma with A Heart since it had just begun and the manga isn't even close too finish, Fox Emperor due too having just begun and that the author once again went on break so that manga is unfinished, Rise of the King due too having already completed a Tokyo Ghoul x Naruto fanfic already and this story has some time before it reaches Black Bullet series, and Magi since that story is far from finished since I'm not even done with the first season not too mention that there stories I'm not sure about are some of the Yugioh fanfics such as the Gx and 5Ds stories due too the duels are time consuming as ending._

 _I don't think I will be doing a next Gen for Wicked Blade and I'm still thinking about the Lightning Soul Reaper one, too while Zero the Uchiha is under consideration but maybe unlikely since the Boruto story has yet too reach its own story. Demon Emperor is still under consideration since I've already caught up to from the actual series. Clone of Darkseid due too not being close too finishing but more so at the fact it's quite straining thinking of fights for the story and how I might've messed the story up. The other stories I screwed up was Titanium Dragon Slayer and my Soul Eater fanfic, the soul eater I planned on bringing it back but sadly I lost the entire story and rather not due it again from scratch while Titanium Dragon Slayer was screwed up since Naruto wasn't really focusing on him using Titanium magic and he was too op though I still regret deleting it since I could have just changed the chapters instead delete it, over 90 chapters down the drain from my one stupid mistake. Now onto the main stories_

 _Naruto and The Sacred Gear_

 _King of The Ocean_

 _Naruto The Warrior of Hope_

 _The Lightning King Raijin_

 _The Dragon Slayer of Light_

 _The Mandarin Returns S3_

 _Naruto and the Next Generation_

 _Naruto and The Sacred Gears main story is reaching its conclusion but he next Gen has just begun with what appears too be a four arc series, not exactly sure if I can do it or not but if I did it will go over 200 chapters maybe reach even 300. King of the Ocean began more recently but it surprised me too see it quickly becoming popular though it's far from finished, even I wonder when this will be done and hopefully it will in the next 3 maybe 4 years give or take since I'm not sure due too how long the story is which is very impressive on the creators part._

 _Now the Warrior of Hope story, look at the AN for the story since I changed it for that very story since it has a different message from all the ones I've put up on my stories. The Lightning King Raijin is one of my most favourites since I liked how I brought in Naruto as main character with Boku no Hero, One Punch Man, and Twin Star Exorcist. Basically I have the arcs sorted out in my mind on how too do things for this story._

 _Dragon Slayer of Light was created to apologize too those who liked Titanium Dragon Slayer as well as the story is reading the end of the festival arc including the fact it will be skipping into the Tartarus Arc due too Naruto not having much too do with that at the moment._

 _The Mandarin story is the sequel too two other Mandarin stories, I've worked on it for awhile as well as may plan on doing a fourth fanfic for that story due too that it may need it after the infinity war arc I plan on doing once the hulks get back to earth._

 _Now finally the Yugioh story…when I was a kid I love the card game Yugioh though even I may be getting old for the series but it was one of my first stories I ever did and it has created multiple stories though I had too end The Search For Naruto early since I had problems coming up with Duels. Don't think I will do another Yugioh fanfic for the sixth series if it is going too be announced._

 _I don't have all the time in the world too focus on my stories since I realize I need too focus more on my life and not Fanfiction which is more of my hobby. Anyways thank you for reading and hopefully I can get back on my feet in January, still trying too adjust after what's been happening too me._

 _Peace.'_

Well, that was probably the longest excerpt so far - hopefully there won't be anything longer. Anyways, regarding the AN; if you were reading the story 'The Lightning King Raijin,' then you probably won't be too happy if you were to see this massive AN in your email when you were expecting an actual chapter.

Author's note should be INCLUDED in the chapter, not as a separate chapter. This is something that EVERYONE should understand. True, it will bump up your story because you updated, but adding an AN chapter instead of including it with an ACTUAL chapter is a complete dick move.

Now, I'll be honest with you guys, when I first started reading fanfiction in 2014, I actually read Shadow Knight Destroyer's stories. Of course, back then, I didn't care about grammar and really just read Fanfiction for OC moves and OP characters. I still remember some of my thought processes back then, so I am able to sympathize with many of the people who enjoy these stories. It's not that their 'tastes' are garbage, it's just that many of them are unable to see what's wrong with it, and only look for certain aspects which they can find in these stories. Just like how I just wanted OP OC spell names and people getting rekt instead of an actual plot line.

Example, **GOLD DRAGON'S BRILLIANT FIST** , or some other unimaginative bullshit of the same category.

Such a long AN should be posted on the author's profile EVEN IF he added the author's note to an actual chapter. People reading one story do not want to see 500 words of notes on other stories of series that they might not even know.

Not only that, many people DON'T care about what's going in your actual life. I had a year long hiatus because my father died from cancer and I was dealing with working 50-70 hour weeks because of the lack of income, depression, anxiety AND suicidal thoughts, THEN, finally got back. However, I know people on fanfiction don't give a fuck about those things so I don't post an update. The one time I posted an AN telling the readers of my Madara story that I am updating was removed because not doing so would be hypocritical. People on the internet don't give a shit about your real life problems, anyone saying 'I'm sorry for your loss' despite not knowing my name is saying it because society deems that's something you're SUPPOSED to say, not because they are actually empathizing with me.

So what exactly am I saying? If you have depression, anxiety, real life issues, etc., there is no need to update about them. We get it, life is the highest priority, none of us expects you to be sitting in front of your computer writing fanfiction for every waking moment of your life. Us as readers however, do NOT want to see a notification in the email just to see a gigantic essay about your life that 90% probably don't care about - I'm sure there are people out there that can feel emotion on just about everything so I won't speak for them.

In conclusion to this section, those of you who want to put your author's note on what's going on, why you're not updating, or some general information about the story itself, do it IN the chapter BEFORE or AFTER the contents. Remember, people don't care about your life, they just want to read the story about how Naruto isn't Naruto but is an OC.

Despite the more ranty nature of this section, as this is something that TRIGGERS ME TO NO END, what you should be getting out of this is that you shouldn't be uploading an author's note as a separate chapter. Any author's note should be included in the chapter itself, and if information not regarding the story needs to be posted (story updates etc.), then it should be posted on your profile or in a chapter of the actual story you are talking about.

 **Asking for Reviews:** Asking for reviews is probably one of the most annoying things you can do in your author's notes. I was guilty of this myself, so I decided to remove it from every single one of my stories - even if I used words like please, etc. It is still the same, so it should be removed.

 **If any of you still see it on my chapters, please let me know asap so I can get rid of it. Thanks!**

Now, asking for reviews is not exactly story breaking. Of course, some authors do this differently; some are polite about it, but some are rather aggressive.

If someone were to say 'Make sure to follow, fav, and review,' then that is acceptable. It's similar to how youtubers tell people to like and subscribe, but in Fanfiction.

However, here is an example of a slightly more annoying way to ask for reviews.

 **Wotc: Fairy Tail** by BrxkenArrow

Here is an excerpt of an author's note from the story above:

 **'…I won't be putting any more than 2 more girls in the harem. Suggestions and reasons are welcome.**

 **I didn't get any reviews in the previous chapter, so please review here! Reviews sustain my desire to write!'**

First off, there are couple things wrong with this part. The first and biggest is the part where the author says reviews sustain his desire to write. Now we know that the author is writing for reviews, what's probably going to happen is that the author will lose interest in this story entirely and simply not write anymore. It hasn't updated in 2 months despite having 7 chapters written in one, so that is most likely the case.

While this isn't THAT aggressive, the author is saying that he is annoyed that the last chapter didn't get any reviews, and that the lack of reviews might stop his updates.

Of course, the next excerpt will directly say that.

 ** _'…Hope you enjoyed the chapter, and I hope the Harem is to your liking! I'm still considering Erza, but I'm very reluctant._**

 ** _Also, if you guys ain't gonna review, I ain't gonna write. I have no interest in writing a story that nobody's gonna read of give feedback on.'_**

I'm not sure about you guys, but just seeing that part makes me want to punch my screen and hopefully it hits this brxken guy's face. THREATENING not to write a story for reviews is probably the scum-baggiest thing you could possibly do. People will review your story regardless if it's good OR bad.

I write my own stories because I enjoy writing them, not because of comments from people I don't know. If you do the exact opposite of what I do, then maybe you should do some soul searching and fix those insecurity and self-esteem issues.

Anyways, if you threaten for reviews, SHAME, SHAME, GOD FUCKING SHAME. Please go to Kmstools, get a discount saw, and then separate your balls from your body so there will be no chance for your descendants to work the Earth. I removed a lot of hate speech from my previous chapters but this part is something I cannot bring myself to remove.

In conclusion for this section, asking politely for reviews is acceptable, and only the truly picky will get offended by it. Ex. I get offended by many things and I'm considered extreme by some, but there are people that make me look like some sort of comatose plant in comparison. Threatening to not update for reviews however, is 100% unacceptable. That makes you a stain on humanity and such actions should not be done in any circumstance.

 **Asking for Pairings (SB?):** Asking for pairings is a grey line between things that ARE story breaking and things that are not. As the author, you should already have the MAIN pairings planned at the very least. Although, I would personally not have ANY of the pairings unplanned or up to the readers to decide. If the main pairings are already decided WITHOUT the readers intervention, but there were side pairings - let's say, NaLu or Nali in a Erza centric story, then it wouldn't be as bad (but still bad) to ask the readers for that sub pairing.

However, if there was a pairing that is not relevant to the main story line, I would simply not do them.

Now, why is it bad for authors to ask their readers for pairings? This question actually brings us back to the 'writing-for-reviews.'

Example, let's say the author wants to write an OCxErza story, but the majority of the readers decide to vote for OCxLucy. If the author decides to be honourable and writes OCxLucy, then they might lose interest in the story. However, if the author decides to write an OCxErza anyway, then why bother asking for the vote?

The thing is, the readers won't always want the same ship as you. Therefore, if you want a certain ship to sail, then just write it. There is no need to ask the readers for pairings, or god forbid, WHO SHOULD BE IN THE FUCKING HAREM?

There are so many people that do this and almost all of these stories end up being abandoned because, more often than not, they are write-for-review stories.

I swear to all that is unholy, asking readers to vote for who should be in the harem like a band of 12-year-old girls might as well be asking if whether or not should five lions or ten lions be used in a roman gladiatorial battle. The guy fighting the lions is the story. Doesn't matter what choice is made, it's going to die.

So all in all, when it comes to asking for pairings, don't. Do yourself a favour and get the romance shit sorted out with your beta before writing it. If the actual pairing doesn't come until the later parts of the story, then you have more time to build it up. If you are going to write a first chapter OCxHarem crush blush, then there is nothing I can do for you.

 **Conclusion:** While many of the people that tend to do the things listed in this chapter are actually because they DON'T know any better, some authors do it because they know they will get more views. A good story doesn't mean how many people like it, majority decisions don't always make the best ones - people voting for Trump instead of Bernie Sanders or rather not even giving Bernie a chance to run. It is important for everyone to learn how and why each of the things I listed happens, and it is the responsibility of all authors to understand.

IF after understanding my arguments, you still decide to write stories such as harem, etc. Then I can expect that proper build up and development will be written. Not only that, I will respect your opinion because you now have an informed one.

I'm sure somewhere out there, there are writers capable of good grammar, good plot development, character development, and world building that exists to write OCxHarem stories. While I will always disagree with them, just like how they will disagree with me, there is nothing more we can do but agree to disagree. When all the basic structure of a story is perfected, what comes down is simply the difference in tastes.

 **Theme:** Never write for the sole purpose of attention, you will lose yourself to the story.

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 **Chapter 7 Done! Next Chapter: A Guide to Reviews**

 **Make sure you guys check out my other stories!**

 **Read my profile and join my Trope discussion forums!**

 **[ROTLB: The Birth of the Light Bringer]**

 **[ROTLB: Light of Fairies]**

 **[Chef Ramsay]**

 **[A God's Redemption]**

 **[The Nothing Dragon Slayer's Misadventures in Fairy Tail]**

 **Minipa, out!**


	8. CH8 - A Guide to Reviews

**Chapter 8 - A Guide to Reviews**

 **The review section became a lot longer than expected, so the next technicality chapter will be on for chapter 9.**

* * *

I'm sure some of you got offended by the shit I posted last chapter; if you still decided to read on, then I congratulate you for your steeled mind. You get a medal for not being a snowflake.

Anyways, before that, time to reply to some guest reviews because I keep forgetting (most recent ones first).

 **Guest:** That's your opinion, and I'm going to keep writing this because it's an enjoyable hobby. It's more fun than playing video games, at least in my opinion. If I wanted to be famous without being creative I would have written a Naruto x Harem crossover - nice idea by the way. Oh yeah, high five! Also I masturbate with that hand :)

 **Guest:** The one wielded by Dabura from DBZ right? It's a canon weapon but I still think it's a generic name. 'Perhaps I should do a section on naming weapons?' A sword with a darkness element could certainly be named 'Sword of Darkness.' This isn't exactly story breaking.

 **IHRNFF:** Yep, that's the OOC in-name-only Naruto's.

 **Guest:** Naruto x Sasuke fanfics are just as bad as Levi x Eren fanfics.

 **Guest:** Not in Europe or the Americas, but a character that's 100% Asian should not have the blue eye colour. This CAN happen, but the chances of it happening in real life make it a Sue trait if it were to be on a character.

 **P73-Bias Factor:** Fairy Tail Dragon Slayer has many stories with the traits. He's not really my targeted audience as I'm focusing on the writers who don't really know better. They might be using tropes or Sue traits simply because they are inexperienced. People who do them because they are lazy are beyond me.

 **Guest:** This guy got mentioned multiple times already, perhaps a case study is in order.

 **Guest:** Glad you think so, some stories make it possible for me to tolerate bad grammar, an example would be **Destiny Shattered** by Herodan3.

 **Guest:** The Naruto was neglected story which usually turns into an edgelord Naruto bash fic is certainly a cliché. That summary takes some of my faith in humanity and smears it right onto an Indian toilet.

 **Thank you:** I'm sure the teachers would enjoy the ranting.

* * *

 **Reviews:** Reviews are a fun little tool for readers to leave their feedback on your story. Whether story by story, chapter by chapter, or just whenever they feel like.

Of course, there are some guidelines the people reviewing and are being reviewed should follow to encourage discussion while showing their support for the author at the same time.

I will be picking one of the top favourited stories of Fairy Tail to make a list of all the reviews from page one. This is to show an example on what usually happens in the review sections of common stories.

 **Time is the Path to Strength** by Repiece

I will be taking the first page of reviews from the story above.

 **ShadowDeathSkull:** Ok… spelling Lucy's last night wrong is gonna bug me but I can over look it. Great story so far.

 **Saisri:** Gradually the fic became more and more boring to the point where I have to read it just for the heck of it

 **E.N.D:** No Lucy, no Mira, and no Lisanna! Wentsu, (with sex regards of her age, which for the record is over 400 likie mine,) Natza, Navia, and me and Cana, and me and Ultear! That's it!

 **E.N.D:** No Lucy, no Mira, no Lisanna! Just Wentsu, Natza, and me and Ultear, and Navia

 **Dragoul Mayol:** It has appeared that Repiece is no longer with us. "Requiesce in pace"

 **ArTiCFr33zE:** mxbxn

 **Guest:** Y u let this story die you pigfu*ker? I thought u cared aboot your reader but instead, you abandon your readers for 3 YEARS! Such a swell guy/gal u r

 **Doom Marine 54:** Oh my god, this story is just so bad. I swear, if the mental retardation required to make this was even half as bad, the human race would have world peace by now. But no, because you decided to infect with our minds with this shit. I actually favourited this piece of crap years ago. But now? Fuck you, loser.

 **Doom Marine 54:** Lol! Since when did this story become so gay?

 **125B:** So it's basically all canon except for natsu being stronger… and zeref making his enemies stronger… so what was the point of natsu being stronger if your just rehashing canon with same enemies but stronger? Story stopped being at all interesting now that it's just oh hey enemy that zeref made stronger who could have guessed

 **Drbakerarcho2008:** So you said you aren't getting to let this fic die, but it has been 3 years and I am still waiting.

 **Guest:** Ummm if Ezra was taking is serious why wasn't she changing armor I mean I loved the fight scene but it felt a little like you were forcing it to be one sided

 **Guest:** Girl, man whatever you are this sucks. Really, his new dragon move shortens his life span what the F***!

 **Guest:** wow… best of luck in your career repiece :D well it's been three years since your last update but I understand why… I really hope that this story will continue and I'll keep waiting for your updates… this stuff is great…

 **Hiro21** : Please update! I love this story so much!

There you have it, the first page of reviews as taken from January 3, 2017. This is what the an average story's review section looks like. You might find certain stories that are filled with the more 'complex' reviewers of this site.

An example would be **One's Road to Remembrance** by Insane Dominator. Despite that story being nothing particularly special, it has become a hotspot for debate as MANY of the reviews are actually done by more intelligent individuals. This means that the reviews have proper grammar, criticizes certain plot points or development instead of people downright insulting the author.

Now, taking the examples from the page of reviews, I will be going through multiple types of reviews and my suggested method of reviewing. Remember, this is a SUGGESTION, people are going to comment shit like 'u r gay lul nerd' or something equally retarded no matter what I say.

 **Reviews you should ignore:** When it comes to reviews, anyone who has been on Fanfiction will know that there are many reviews that really offer no substance, and should not be taken to heart. Of course, whether you simply skip over their review or reply regardless, does not matter. Don't let these comments sway your opinions, whether or not they are positive, or negative.

Reviews, as I said before, are for readers to leave feedback on a story. This could either be their own opinions, or to state flaws that they found during a read through. Here are some categories of reviews that you, as an author, should not take seriously.

Substanceless reviews: There are many examples of reviews that could fit into this category. Of course, the ones that do are not always negative. However, they are often nonsensical and offer no substance. These reviews would make an author go 'okay?' or 'what?' after reading them.

They do NOT count the reviews meant to make comments about the plot itself. As in, readers saying things such as 'Go Natsu, beat him up!' or 'Nice one!'

Substanceless reviews are geared towards readers giving feedback on the story's quality without actual criticism.

Of course, from a completely non-biased point of view, readers that think the story is GOOD should point out why as well. In my personal opinion however, it is more important for readers to point out why a story is BAD, that way, the author can reread the story and fix any errors if necessary.

Here are some examples of reviews from other stories that would fit in this category.

 **Jolutz15 - (from Naruto Uzumaki-Namikazi: The After Life by Egyptian God Phoenix):** Ghggug bgh ghbyggtghh

What? The fuck is a 'Ghggug bgh ghbyggtghh?' This is a COMPLETE nonsensical review and should just not be done. Spamming a review is something that all readers have the RIGHT to do, but there are certain 'reviewing' etiquettes that I believe people should try to follow.

 **Rufus264 - (from Fairy's Guardian by YagamiNguyen):** This fic sucks.

There are many reviews on various stories where the review is simply a short sentence describing how the reader feels about the story. The reviewer did not specify WHY it sucked; as in, Mary Sue characters, inconsistent plotline, bad grammar, etc. A WHY is just as if not more important than what.

 **Onishin Tsukitenshi - (from Naruto the Strong Mage by fairy tail dragon slayer):** PLEASE UPDATE PLEASE UPDATE PLEASE UPDATE PLEASE UPDATE PLEASE UPDATE PLEASE UPDATE PLEASE UPDATE PLEASE UPDATE PLEASE UPDATE PLEASE UPDATE PLEASE UPDATE

Although the reader is saying a positive thing about the story by expressing their desire to see an update, this review is no more than spam as it simply begs the author to post another chapter. While I'm not particularly irritated by this, I'm still a bit peevish. I understand that you may want to show your support to the author and may not want to put the time and effort for a big 500 word block of text. However, a simple 'This story is good!' will suffice as a replacement to the spam above.

Insults: Oh BOY here we go. You know instead of actual communication or discussion, people just call the opposition names and insult their mothers of some bullshit? While nothing I can or will say will ever change the way arguments work on the internet and apparently real life now in 2018, I can at least hope SOME people would take my advice.

An insult review is basically when a reader calls the author some sort of name in hopes to offend them. This includes but is not limited to: 'ur gay', 'fuck you', 'this story's garbage', etc. Reviews like this should just be ignored completely unless you really want to reply to them; this is because the reviewer did not bother to put in time or effort explaining their own stance. Instead of calling the author gay or whatever original term pulled out of their 16 year-old assholes, they should give a reason.

Perhaps the reviewer did not like the pairing, the setting, how the plot turned out, etc. They could explain it instead of saying 'when did this story become shit?'

Keep in mind, many readers will combine subtle and passive aggressive insults with criticism. It is important to identify which ones they are so the author doesn't take them to heart.

If you are a reader, wishing to express your opinion about the story, even if its negative, you should consider following the advice I have below.

 **Review Etiquettes:** What exactly are review etiquettes? They are simple a set of guidelines that can pump some maturity into the dumpster of a place called the review section.

Grammar: I believe that grammar should hold precedence in a review, especially if the reviewer is commenting about the story's grammar. Of course, incorrect grammar in reviews IS understandable, considering they don't exactly give you an edit button for already posted reviews.

If you are somebody who wishes to offer an author constructive criticism, taking the time and effort to check your grammar in a review would make it that much more legitimate. After all, people might find it hypocritical to comment on grammar when one's grammar itself is not adequate.

Support for the Author: Now, some of you reading a story might want to show support for the author. I don't expect every single one of you to offer substance to reviews such as 'Good story', etc., but for those of you who do, you should make comments on what the author has done well. This could be grammar, plotlines, metaphors, or just whatever excellence you found in the story.

Comments such as 'UPDATE', or 'MOAR', should not be posted despite being seemingly positive, this could irritate authors especially when they are already working on a new chapter. I'm sure there are people out there that feel a sense of pride when a guest reviewer spams the word 'MOAR' over a hundred times as a review; but, I'm sure many authors would appreciate non-spam reviews that have genuine reasoning on why their story is good.

Taking Criticism: The most important part of reviews containing content, is the criticism. For the most part, most of these reviews combine insults into it as well. Of course, this is understandable as all of us, including myself, are affected by our emotions when writing.

When someone insults you, insulting back or sounding pretentious won't do you or your story any good. When you get reviews that contain criticism WITH insults, you should respond and acknowledge the valid feedback, but act mature and unbiased to the insults. It may be hard to do, as often times, I would struggle with it myself.

Just recently, I responded to a emotional review containing valid points in a very pretentious and offensive manner. Many of the comments and statements I have said was completely unnecessary. For those of you that have experienced this with either myself or other authors, don't use that as a reason to not follow my advice. Remember, do as I say, not as I do. Just because I struggle to follow my own advice, it doesn't mean that it is a valid reason to not improve yourself.

'But wait! You say unnecessary things in the actual chapters all the time!' - That's my vulgar humour, besides, am I really a shining tower of maturity? Just because I'm immature doesn't mean you should be.

'Why should we be mature if you aren't?' - Are you seriously using a guy on the internet who you have never met before, probably wouldn't care if you got eaten, as an example for your intrapersonal development?

Giving Criticism: As a reviewer, I'm sure many of you out there have some sort of opinion in regards to the story or this hunk of junk I wrote right? When giving criticism, it is important to be unbiased and to focus on the content, rather than the author, or the author's mother.

If you find something wrong with the story, for example: grammar (most common one), plot, pairings, character development, you should let the author in a informative manner. Making comments on the author's possible lack of skill will not help anyone. Insulting authors if they make a mistake might simply make them ignore all reviews and continue writing without change.

Making valid points WHILE giving suggestions how to improve in a neutral manner is, in my opinion, the type of reviews that authors take to heart the most.

I'm probably pretty inconsistent in my levels of maturity, but then again, who isn't? What is important is that you raise the average between your lowest and highest levels of maturity so that it will never stoop to my level as shown above.

 **Reacting to negative reviews:** Now for those of you READING reviews, how should you respond to the generous feedback offered by your readers?

I don't really know what happens in the background as people have different methods of responding to reviews. My current method is PM for users with accounts, and before the chapter to respond to guests. I'm sure there are many of you out there that have lashed out towards other users because of reviews you may not have liked.

Don't feel bad if you do, we all have to go through the same path some time.

Here is the actual conversation that went down between myself and a reviewer. This is meant as an example of what NOT to do. For those of you who want to skip the actual message and continue, just find the ending indicator.

 **Rifat** : _'While watching you rant about /fanfiction/ of all things is hilarious joke of itself, you forgot a few important things._

 _One, this 'story' you published isn't a story at all._

 _Despite how much knowledge you have in writing, skills in analyzing a prose, and the whole shebang you really didn't need to go out of your way to garner attention to yourself; by having such a clickbait title and a summary that sort of implies your jealous AF of those would-be authors who write such stories it seems like you're screaming "NOTICE ME READERS!"_

 _You could've written a title that seemed like something not written by a 12 year old._

 _Second, I have no qualms with you pointing out the flaws in my story. It's as purple as they come, granted I didn't the ABC's of writing back then, but it was still bad nonetheless. I'll admit it, my Naruto/FT story was cancerous as they come and by God I'm glad I cancelled the original version._

 _But would it have killed you to send a PM to that more or less said "Oh hey! I'm Minipa. I write FT/Naruto stories. I soooo want to rip your story a new one by taking one of your worst passages and label you as an OC author! It's totally cool, right? Lol."_

 _I'm starting to wonder if you contacted any of the authors from whose stories you've borrowed the aforementioned passages to point out their flaws. If you didn't, well shame on you Minipa._

 _Still, if you want to rant further on about my previous story (because there's plenty of material there for you to make jokes about to make yourself feel that tiny bit more significant) you can do it._

 _I, the "OC author", am GIVING you the PERMISSION to borrow those passages so you can complain about fanfiction. You can find it under the story title "Old Stories with Bad Grammar and Bad Plots" where all my cancelled stories are. Sounds like something you'd enjoy dissecting the hell out of, right?_

 _Thirdly, I want to say this is funny. I honestly want to but it's not. It's not "ha-ha" funny, rather it's like "Look at this guy! He's not stopping" funny -which isn't really THAT humorous._

 _I mean...you're complaining about fanfiction -Naruto/FT no less. The amount of hours you put into this must've been straining to say the least. Seems like an awful lot of work and I'm wondering why you put yourself through the torture of reading such stories. This is just sad, depressing even._

 _Why hurt your eyes and your mind like this?_

 _I mean clearly you're an elite who knows the in's and out's of such horrid stories. Surely you wouldn't go out of your way to read them just so you could write a /story/ about their works where you shat on them because you're better at writing._

 _Oh wait..._

 _Right, I think this is my cue to leave. Anyways, good luck with life and I highly suggest you start reading actual books instead of fanfics -I heard they're better._

 _Looking forward to when you write an actual story._

 _Bye!'_

 **Minipa: _'_** _Yes it isn't a story, point?_

 _I got nothing better to do with my life so I keep doing this, point? My story I pulled out of my a** is far more popular than stories I put effort in, that is something that sat wrongly with me._

 _I don't even remember which story I took from you, if it's all the same, I just take random stories I read that would illustrate my points better. So don't worry, it's nothing special._

 _Yes thank you for that permission, great on you mate. I write these stories because I want to, the same way you write stories I talk s*** about because YOU want to. I'm going to do me just like how you're going to do you._

 _I have nothing better to do with my life and frankly it's actually quite enjoyable. In my honest opinion it's better than getting angry at playing pointless video games._

 _I don't read stories I s*** talk because I want to torture myself as if I'm some sort of masochist. I go through the hundreds of fanfiction because I hope to find the one story that will make up for all of it. Have you ever read a story, and you thought to yourself, 'This is better than the bloody canon story!'. That is what I read all of this for, I look for stories that rewrite the canon in a way that gives me goose bumps, or OC stories that are done well enough where it could rewrite entirety of canon in a far better way. Stories that make Naruto the 6th Hokage after the pain fight are examples of such IMO._

 _I'm not sure if the 'elite' comment is sarcasm, but I wouldn't have learned about any of the writing tactics had it not been for the s*** fanfiction. That was the motivation to start researching tropes and actively seek out betas to find the same errors in my own writings._

 _Yes, insult my life choices all you want, in the end, I'm going to keep writing._

 _I would say good luck to your life as well but I really don't give a s*** ;p._

 _Why did I spend 5 minutes of my time writing this? Frankly, it was more enjoyable than browsing memes.'_

 **Rifat:** _"Yes it isn't a story, point?"_

 _Wow. Just wow. Words can't begin to describe how much that statement turned on its head in your later points where you call your little...venting session a 'story'._

 _As for everything else, f you really enjoy wading through proverbial seas of shit, then it's your thing. At least have some basic decency to remember the people whose work you pointed out. It's the least you can do, considering that your PM just goes on to show how narcissistic and reclusive you are._

 _I'm going to be honest, you should get some help. I'm not being sarcastic, I'm serious.'_

 **Minipa:** _'I'm doing a edit anyway to fix the grammar errors but I'll get rid of the parts where I called it a story, rest assured._

 _Kind of hard to remember, I search up a story that fits my descriptions, use it as an example, then never touch it again._

 _Nah, I'm just using it to hide my insecurities and the fact I have no friends._

 _Who actually gets help when someone on the internet tells them to get help?'_

Wow! I just reread this and I'm surprised at my own words. I sound like Emperor Asshole III straight from cunt land. What I really should have done is wait until I have calmed down before replying. That would have been the more mature thing to do. However, as you can see, I didn't. Vulgar humour is one thing, but actually using it to reply to someone else? That is douche master 420 right there.

For those of you that read through the conversation, take my replies as an example of what NOT to do. Sometimes, someone will make a review that will offend you. Replying back right away while being emotionally compromised will not help anyone. You should calm down before writing the reply. It is important to proofread the message before sending as well as many unnecessary comments are more in-the-moment things.

Here is my reply to an earlier review which I believe was far more mature than the 12 year-old edgelord replies above.

 **LordPhoenex10: _'_** _Can you please follow your own advice and get a beta reader for this. Almost every chapter has incorrect grammar, even worse is your overuse of sentence additions that add no value to the fanfiction help story you have going on. Every time I see "that gave me autistism" it completely derails the actually good advice and forces me to question if you actually know what you're talking about since autism isn't something you spontaneously gain, it's not a disease its a mental disability heck in some mild forms it can be beneficial. Don't overstate things with hyperbole it might've been cute in the first paragraph-it isn't anymore. If you want a beta who can add to this commentary I'd be willing to help, this has a lot of potential and your detailing of Mary Sues was amazing. However, at least in my own opinion it's not reaching its full potential.'_

 **Minipa:** _'Like I said on Chapter 6, I'm sure I missed things grammar-wise on my proof reads due to my mind subconsciously skipping them. The sentence editions and the more ranty nature is exactly how I talk in real life. I do know what autism is, and I actually say 'this gives me autism' when met with something dissatisfying to experience._

 _In terms of Beta's, I'm trying to get to the point where I no longer need one to catch grammar mistakes, especially with writings such as this. I'll go back and reread my chapters after the initial post. My story 'A God's Redemption' is actually riddled with grammar errors and I was able to catch 10-20 per chapter after reading it months after writing them._

 _If you have things to say about the actual sections, ex. harem fics, OOC, summaries, etc., then I will be happy to listen. However, I am going to reject your offer as this is the way I have decided to write this, knowing that not all will agree.'_

Again, I'm not the epitome of maturity, but compared to what I have said to Rifat, this reply seems far closer to my actual age. Even after rereading, I didn't really see particularly unnecessary comments that could have been taken off.

After seeing how I reply to reviews, you now know what you should do and what you should not do. The first example was a definite no-no, while the second example is how I myself would want to reply to reviews that I don't necessary like. I'm sure there will be more people that will comment how me writing this is a waste of my life, but is important that when those reviews do come, that I reply to them in a mature manner. Just as you should.

 **Conclusion:** Reviews are tool for readers to interact with the author, whether good, or bad. Personal insults on both the author and the reader should be expunged from the actual criticism as it offers no substance and may halt improvements due to feelings of spite.

If you see something wrong or flawed, let the author know in detail, and offer suggestions on how to fix it. Insulting them won't change it, nor will it help them realize their errors.

 **Theme:** ALWAYS OFFER REASONING FOR YOUR OPINIONS.

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 **Chapter 8 Done! Next Chapter: Technicalities**

 **Make sure you guys check out my other stories!**

 **Read my profile and join my Trope discussion forums!**

 **[ROTLB: The Birth of the Light Bringer]**

 **[ROTLB: Light of Fairies]**

 **[Chef Ramsay]**

 **[A God's Redemption]**

 **[The Nothing Dragon Slayer's Misadventures in Fairy Tail]**

 **Minipa, out!**


	9. CH9 - Technicalities

**Chapter 9 - Technicalities**

 **So for those of you that have already read the previous 8 chapters, the removal of hate speech is done! Over 1,000 words were removed in chapter 5 alone! Of course, my vulgar humour and profanities not directed at specific authors but instead the tropes themselves will remain :)**

 **Also, the title of the previous technicality chapters were changed to reflect its content. Some of the more technical parts of the story have been moved to this chapter as well.**

 **Here we go! This chapter is dedicated to the skeleton of a story. Things such as: pacing, dialogue, structure, and flow will all be included!**

 **Here we go, but first, some guest review replies!**

 **Also, for those of you leaving reviews as guest, please change your name to guest123 or something, that way it is easier for me to reply to them. If I have 5 Guest review replies that are all named 'guest,' it will get pretty confusing.**

* * *

 **Guest:** Some people have told me the same thing, and frankly, you, and them are all right. The trope discussions will be edited to reflect such. It is true, many of the sections ARE my own personal opinion, just like how many people like reading yaoi smut and many don't. Stories that are OC alone do not bother me, it is the stories that contain multiple traits I have listed out previously that affect me. While it is indeed true that I should just not read stories I don't like, but how would I know whether or not I like a story if I didn't read it first?

I understand that, although it is also understandable that you say that. My language and attitude in the previous sections do warrant it. Ignoring the vulgar humour, the hate speech used to target the authors that wrote these kinds of stories is indeed, as you say, childish.

I wouldn't say I went that far, but then again, I might prove myself wrong after another reread. That is a perfect suggestion, the Trope Discussions, just like my other stories, are all projects that I learn and improve from; whether it is my attitude, my grammar, or writing skills in general. You said that you couldn't read my stories past chapter one, I would appreciate if you would expand on your opinion and give me your reasons for thinking such.

I write this discussion in a way that could be helpful to writers. I cannot control the phases that everyone go through and their tastes in stories. However, many of these authors are people who write like that because they simply don't know better. Some authors, I'm sure, will read my discussions despite the vulgarity, and still learn and understand the points I'm trying to bring across.

In conclusion, I intend and am already removing the hate speech and unnecessary comments that not only aren't funny, but do not help anyone. Hopefully by the end of this week, the chapters will be edited and any new readers will have a better experience.

 **Guest:** I'm glad the advice has helped you. You are not the first to comment about the bashing, and frankly, like-minded people have already swayed me. I am in the process of removing hate speech from my chapters and should be done in the next couple days.

If the same person that made the review has stuck around, I hope you know that I indeed am taking yours and everyone else's advice.

I have replied :)

* * *

 **Definitions below taken from Writer's Digest.**

 **Pacing (SB)**

What is pacing exactly? Pacing is a tool that controls the speed and rhythm at which a story is told. It refers to exactly how fast or slow certain scenes will take place and also on the passing of time within the story. Characters aging through time skips are a way to quicken pacing in otherwise unimportant intervals of time.

A good example would be time skipping in between arcs.

When it comes to pacing, different speeds and rhythms will be used based on the needs of the story. An epic with a large world such as **The Lord of the Rings** will be told at a more leisurely pace. Of course, like all stories, there will be time skips in unimportant parts of the story, but the pacing will often be slower than others that way the author can explore the world.

A short story or light novel might have far faster pacing, that way they can deliver more action and drama.

Pacing is part structural and part word choices. Pacing could be slowed if the author describes a certain setting with a multitude of words and figurative language; on the other hand, it can be quickened through time skips, short but to the point descriptions, and through narrating certain scenes.

When it comes to pacing, there are many literary devices that you can use to speed up or slow down the pacing.

 **Action:** Action is a useful tool to show what happens in a story whether if it is to bring drama or a fast paced fight scene. Action scenes move the story along with few distractions, less description and also less transitions. Actions scenes tend to omit or limit internal thoughts, especially in the midst of a battle or a crisis. In action scenes, you want to limit emotional build up and avoid long descriptive passages.

Write in a way that will allow the reader to imagine a battle coming straight out of Dragon Ball.

 **Destiny Shattered** by Herodan3 does a good job of doing fight scenes, especially since it's a DBZ fanfiction. Fight scenes and action are probably the most important aspect of that story.

 **Cliff Hangers:** Now, a cliff hanger is a literary device is used when the outcome of a scene or chapter is not revealed. A good example of this is during a fight scene, the main characters launch a somewhat decisive strike onto their opponent, only for the results to be revealed next chapter.

For this method, the pacing naturally picks up right after as the reader is anxious to find out what happens next. When it comes to readers, they but love and hate cliff hangers. They love the fact that its exciting, thrilling to click next and find out the 'big reveal.' However, they also hate it as if the cliff hanger comes in the next chapter, they will have to wait for the story to update.

If you guys want an example of my own cliff hanger, take a look at chapter 11 of my ROTLB story.

Excerpt for those of you too lazy:

 _' **Deep inside a mountain**_

 _From the lowest chamber of the tallest peak, two deep amber eyes opened for the first time in hundreds of years. Shadows and smoke flowed around the great creature. Its grotesque form and horns illuminated by the flames that followed its awakening. In one hand, held a glowing red sword, in the other, a whip made from the fires of hell itself._

 _The creature looked around, taking notice of every detail inside its resting place, before letting a bloodthirsty grin plaster itself on its face._

 ** _"I sense a godling…"'_**

Now, cliff hangers don't necessarily mean that you're dangling your MC off a cliff as the chapter/scene ends. If they are in the middle of a conversation, the chapter could end with a threat or a challenge that may be difficult to overcome. It can also end before the climax of the drama.

 **Dialogue:** When it comes to dialogue, the pacing can be quickened with the absence of extraneous information and/or dialogue indicators. This type of fast-paced dialogue will invigorate any scene, and can often be the precursor to a rising conflict or a challenge.

The best dialogue for this type of pacing is an abbreviated form of real-life conversation that is filled with tension. It is more akin to a back and forth of volleying rather than a long-winded discussion filled with exposition. Reactions and descriptions that would often be found in normal dialogue would be minimal or even just absent altogether.

Here is an excerpt from my own story with normal dialogue:

 _'Taken back by this, Rosalia widened her eyes before turning to face Seijin. "But...he's only six!" she exclaimed, stopping what she was doing. "What if he gets hurts? Is he ready? I don't wan-"_

 _She was interrupted by Seijin putting his finger on her lips while looking at her with a warm smile. "I'm sure with his blood...he will be capable handling everything I throw at him."'_

Now here is the excerpt of a more, fast-paced dialogue:

 _'"I had it! I was going to blow up its attack on itself then your dumbass decided to pop up that 'F*ck you' pillar!"_

 _"First of all, that spell is called ' Smite!', second of all, that would not have worked, period! You would have gotten blasted straight to next year the moment you attempted that idiotic mass of garbage you called 'strategy!'"_

 _"Oh yeah flashlight? How about you come with a better plan because you are so obviously the genius here!"_

 _"Flashlight? Nice words coming from a blueberry head, Jelly."_

 _"Grr…"_

 _"Grr…"'_

As you can see, the first excerpt had descriptions and reactions every dialogue, with indicators to show more emotion (although that could just be I wasn't good enough to do it without indicators). The second excerpt, had no reactions or indicators, to show a fast-paced back and forth conversation.

This type of dialogue exchange should not be used when your characters are discussing a subject or potentially giving exposition. Exposition and conversations not succeeded or proceeded by action is where I would use the first type of dialogue. However, for the second, I would use them when characters are arguing, confronting, or engaging in a power struggle.

*Think of Goku and Vegeta punching each other. How would you write out that scene? I would do it like this.

Example Excerpt:

 _"Wow, you're pretty strong Vegeta!"_

 _"Of course, I'm the prince of ALL Saiyans, a low class like you won't be able to comprehend my strength!"_

 _"Yeah! I'm going at it with all I got and I'm not so sure that I can win!"_

 _"You WON'T win!"_

 **Prolonged Outcomes:** Now, you might be thinking, 'wait prolonger? Won't this slow down the pacing?' Of course, that might be the case if you are just adding more words to a scene, but a prolonged outcome is used to create suspense. When that is created, forward movement is created and changes the mood to a more face-paced one, even if there are more words.

This technique actually increase the speed or your rhythm, simply because the reader will want to know if the character dies, lives, or if someone comes to rescue them.

That feeling of suspense, is exactly what makes the addition of words acceptable. Don't get me wrong, suspense is NOT an invitation to write a billion paragraphs to describe Naruto, but to rather create that 'thrill' with all the character's emotions going haywire during the suspense.

 **Scene Cuts:** Scene cuts, or an unspecified time skip, is used to move the story to a new location or a time afterwards and assumes the reader can follow along without an explanation of the location change. Of course, authors can add a bold indicator after a line to mark the location and time, just to be safe.

Example:

 ** _'5 Hours later, in OC's house'_**

The purpose of scene cuts are to accelerate the story, to skip otherwise unimportant transitions. For example, your character just got on to the row boat to get across a river. If no struggle or plot point occurs on the river, let's say, no river god or accidentally falling in, then the scene could be cut where the next line would be the character walking up to the village on the other side.

Remember, the characters in the new scene don't necessarily be the characters in the previous scene. They can simply be used to move the focus of the story to another story line. A good example would be in game of thrones where the story goes from Arya, to Sansa, to Bran, etc.

A subcategory of scene cutting, is the rapid usage of it. You can greatly accelerate the flow of the story by making events that happen one after the other, or even at the same time.

Example Excerpt:

 _'Three switches. Three simultaneous actions._

 _'We only have one try, we have to get it right!'_

 _Both excitement and fear filled the mind of the dragonslayer, the consequences of failure were certain, yet, the suspense was absolutely exhilarating._

 _*Scene Cut_

 _'This wait is killing me…' Gray's hand trembled with anticipation, ready to move the moment the signal flares._

 _*Scene Cut_

 _'We have to get this right, or else…' A slender strand of red hair filled her view, snapping the mage out of her stupor. Focus became absolute as a magic circle flared to life, shooting a beam straight into the air._

 _*Scene Cut_

 _'NOW!' Three simultaneous thoughts went through the minds of the mages as a deafening rumble resounded throughout the air._

Notice how by skipping between characters, I was able to create a fast-paced suspense. Of course, the scene would be more impactful if there was context, but that would require writing an entire chapter. So from this short excerpt, I'm sure you already know which characters I was using, basically a short lesson in 'show, don't tell.'

Let's say, the switch is some sort of bomb that would kill everyone and not getting the timing right will set it off. You don't want to use this for EVERY scene, as doing it for every point of suspense will make it platidunous.

 **Summary:** Instead of a play-by-play approach, this is where you tell, don't show. Showing is meant to be more immersive and add a little flare to each scene. However, in unimportant scenes, summarizing them or simple omitting can be used to move the story along.

Summary is basically just a method to trim down your word count and reserving it for major events. You can summarize entire eras, descriptions, and backstories or characters or places not too important to the plot. For example, you can summarize the history of a fortress your character is staying in, instead of writing a gigantic arc of its creation.

Summaries should be used to signify the passing of time, where nothing really occurs during the time passed. For example, if the character is doing a 4-hour training session with nothing new to show, then that is when you use summary.

 **Word Choice and Sentence Structure:** Despite not being an actual literary device, the language of style of writing is probably the most important yet the subtlest. This could range from usage of imagery that's poetically written, or simple summarizing of actions that flow from one sentence to the other.

If you are looking for a fast-paced scene, describing someone's attire for half a chapter is NOT the way to do it. You should never describe ANYONE in such detail unless they are somewhat important to the story.

Ex. If someone is wearing a suit, you don't need to describe the shape of the lapels or the colour of the buttons. A couple sentences that show a well-tailored and form-fitting suit is enough.

 **Common Mistakes with Pacing:** Now, with pacing, whether if you are looking for a slower or quicker pace, here are some common mistakes that I've seen fanfiction authors make. Keep in mind, sometimes authors don't really know if their scenes should use slow or fast pacing, as many of them write the rhythm of their story as they think they should. However, many times, getting the wrong pacing could actually confuse the readers, or even lower the impact of otherwise important scenes.

Dragging: Dragging is a term I like to use for when authors spend too much time lingering on a particular subject. This could range from gigantic paragraphs of description in general, or even using multiple sentences to describe the same thing.

Example Excerpt:

 _'The building was absolutely gigantic. Dozens of massive marble pillars lined the path to a great entrance. The height of each column seemingly reached the skies, as it took monumental effort to see the tops. The path itself was long and wide, there were no imperfections. It was a simple, flawless, road straight to the entrance. Truly a behemoth of a structure.'_

Keep in mind, having ONE of these in an entire chapter will not actually be story breaking. It is when chapters are constantly riddled with repeated descriptors or even unnecessary information, that readers may lose interest and the story will seem bland in general.

Here is how you COULD write the above paragraph (assuming the building's exterior is somewhat important):

Excerpt Revised:

 _'The entrance of the gargantuan structure was lined with dozens of marble pillars, spanning as high and far as the eyes can see.'_

See how compact it became? Roughly the same image was achieved with the shorter version. Despite some of the finer details being absent, many of the repeat descriptions were removed.

Rushing: The opposite of dragging, rushing is a term to describe the LACK of description of scene development in an otherwise important event.

A trap that people often fall into here is when they try to rehash canon. Basically, if they write a story where canon is EXACTLY the same, the scene IMO SHOULD be written in a different perspective, ESPECIALLY if it is an OC story. In fact, it is better to just exclude the OC from the scene at all if it is exactly the same. You are better off putting him in another scene but in the same general area.

Ex. Not rewriting Natsu vs Erigor but instead having your OC fight the Guildmaster of Eisenwald.

For people who write these fights, what often happens is that only a small amount of effort is put in it. This causes the scene to lack impact, and makes readers question if there was even a point of writing that particular portion in the first place.

A good way to get around this, is to have your OC join Natsu AFTER the Erigor battle, in which Natsu gives a short summary of their battle. Enough that people know the canon battle was the same. I wouldn't put an authors note saying the canon battle is the same despite many people already doing so - this breaks pacing and mood.

Now, I understand that when writing a scene that you DON'T want to write, you may want to rush through it. Believe me, I was like that when writing the humongous flash back. I wanted to get writing to the main plot lines. However, if I were to get lazy WRITING my story, then why bother writing my story? For all of you, there will be scenes or events you DON'T want to write, especially if it's an arc you might not like - EDOLAS ARC.

As an author, you must find a way to make it interesting enough or have enough self discipline to get through the arc without compromising the structural integrity of your story's backbone.

 **Dialogue (SB)**

Now what is dialogue? For the lame man's term, dialogue is whenever a character is speaking. You don't necessarily have to have two or more speakers, as dialogue can be achieved just through the act of talking, whether to someone else, to a group, or simply to themselves.

Dialogue is relatively simple to understand; however, there are a set of rules or guidelines that all of you should follow. This is because incorrectly formatted dialogue can cause confusion to the readers, and the lack of character or immersion can make the story and characters seem bland or static. Those are thing you NEVER want to do.

 **New Speakers:** Let's start with the simplest one. New speakers. Every time a new character or entity speaks, you must put it in a new line. This is to altogether avoid confusion without the need of spamming dialogue indicators.

Here is an example excerpt with multiple errors:

 _'"Oh hey Lucy, whatcha doing?" Natsu said, eager to know his blonde partner's thoughts. "O…oh nothing much! just writing a book!" she said. "OH?! You're writing a book! Let me see!" he said, his hands quickly reaching for the leather-bound text. "NO! DON'T TOUCH IT!" she said._

For this excerpt, I decided to keep it short and sweet that way we don't have a massive paragraph. Now, the error we will be focusing on is the fact that both Natsu AND Lucy are speaking in the same paragraph. Even IF dialogue indicators are present, a new line should have been made every time they alternated.

Excerpt fixed:

 _'"Oh hey Lucy, whatcha doing?" Natsu said, eager to know his blonde partner's thoughts._

 _"O…oh nothing much! just writing a book!" she said._

 _"OH?! You're writing a book! Let me see!" he said, his hands quickly reaching for the leather-bound text._

 _"NO! DON'T TOUCH IT!" she said.'_

Some of you might be thinking, wait but the lines are too short! It is because of this incorrect belief that people end up writing humongous paragraphs or have multiple speakers in one paragraph. In an back and forth conversation like this one, the lines are MEANT to be short. Paragraph long dialogue are referred for emotional buildup and exposition.

However, once the lines ARE separated, not only do they look far cleaner, it is also easier to read. A reader doesn't need to read back and forth just to check who is actually speaking.

 **Quotation Marks:** Now, for dialogue, it is the US standard to put ALL dialogue in quotation marks. However, it is single quotations marks for the UK standard.

For those of you writing on Fanfiction, I believe the general consensus for the authors here is to put dialogue in double quotation marks, and thoughts in italicized text with single quotation marks. I myself use this, but for times where I don't use dialogue tags on thoughts, I simply skip a line and use italicized text. If you do proper set up in the previous paragraph, readers should be able to tell.

For the most part, I believe people are familiar with this rule. Although I have seen people use * or even ^ for dialogue tags. I'm not sure if they are simply trying to be stylistic, but regardless of opinion, it will be very difficult to argue that dialogue tags outside of the standard is better.

So for those of you still wondering or having trouble with this, stick to a system of " for dialogue, and ' for thoughts.

 **Punctuation:** I can definitely understand that some people have trouble with this, as I myself had this before asking betas and doing my own research. However, the rules of punctuation is pretty simple to follow, it simply takes some practice.

Now here is a example of dialogue with WRONG punctuation - it won't be italicized like I normally do to avoid confusion:

[ "Hey", Lucy questioned, "what are you doing"? ]

Now, I don't think anyone is actually at that level of mental disability, but as you can see, the punctuation is completely wrong. Punctuation for anything within the dialogue should be included inside the quotation marks. Which means the comma and then question marks are in the wrong place.

Corrected Excerpt:

[ "Hey," Lucy questioned, "what are you doing?" ]

If the dialogue is also the end of a sentence, then the period, '?', or '!', should be inside the quotation marks.

 **Speech Indicators:** Now here is a big one. Not only is it a pet peeve of mine, but it is also a sign of an inexperienced writer. Of course, this is far more standard and guideline based than from my own opinion.

From the first excerpt of the dialogue section, remember how I put 'Natsu said' and 'Lucy said' in every line? After we fixed the multiple speaker issue, we will now fix the issue pertaining to dialogue indicators.

Keep in mind, the next version of the excerpt is the MINIMUM of what you should be doing in terms of dialogue.

 _'"Oh hey Lucy, whatcha doing?" Natsu questioned, eager to know his blonde partner's thoughts._

 _"O-oh nothing much! just writing a book!" the blonde-mage stammered._

 _"OH?! You're writing a book? Let me see!" the excitable dragon slayer exclaimed, his hands quickly reaching for the leather-bound text._

 _"NO! DON'T TOUCH IT!" Lucy shouted.'_

So what did I change? I took out all the 'said' and replaced with dialogue tags that would fit the emotion of the dialogue. Natsu was asking a question in the excerpt, so I used 'questioned.' Lucy replied with a hint of surprise and nervousness, so I used 'stammered.' The other examples are all done the same way; however, I changed some others things too.

You might have noticed that instead of using 'he' or 'she,' I used different titles and labels to refer to the characters. I would use their names in one line, a physical trait in another, then a personality trait in the next. This is to keep a variety in the dialogue tagging that way it doesn't become redundant or bland. Make sure you alternate between these traits, if you repeat pink-haired mage or *colour-hair something, it will become quite platitudinous when all the characters are referred to by their hair colour.

Now keep in mind, certain labels or traits are better used in certain situation. If Natsu was talking about how strong he was, using the label 'son of Igneel' would fit better as that would be something Natsu himself is proud of.

Now, here is another version of the dialogue that you should be trying for:

 _'Inside the room, Natsu noticed his friend Lucy giving all her focus onto a stack of paper. "Oh hey Lucy, whatcha doing?"_

 _Stuttering in surprise, the blonde mage turned abruptly to face the excitable dragon slayer. "O-oh nothing much! Just writing a book!"_

 _"OH?! You're writing a book? Let me see!" With a grin, the curious fire mage reached for the messy mound of world building notes, obviously looking to finding out its contents._

 _The aspiring writer quickly caught on as to what her team mate was doing. "NO! DON'T TOUCH IT!" She quickly covered the pages aggressively, intent on keeping what she wrote a secret.'_

So why exactly did I know use any speech indicators? The reason being, is that when you constantly use dialogue tags, the readers will start to realize that the author is trying for a dialogue. Actions tied to dialogue are far less immersive than dialogue tied to action. Using no indicators, instead using action to set up the dialogue, makes the characters seem more alive and brings a more dynamic flow to the story. It is how I try to write my own stories despite I still use dialogue tags occasionally.

Always room for improvement!

 **General Suggestions**

 **Paragraph Spacing:** Paragraph spacing is basically how you separate your lines and paragraphs. After following the rule of one speaker per paragraph, you SHOULDN'T have massive blocks of text, especially during dialogue.

Of course, what about the expository paragraphs or internal monologues? The issue with that, is more often that not, people don't necessarily know WHEN to separate their paragraphs, resulting in a massive 500-word block of text that is difficult to read - especially if you are not doing 1/2 size.

Assuming you already know how to space paragraphs when it comes to dialogue, I will be writing an excerpt when you do not have anyone talking.

 **Legends of the Atherial** by Some guy2283

I will be taking an exact excerpt from the story above:

 _'Waking up to the sound of a commotion isn't how I would want to start my day. I mean normally everything starts out fine, but then one or two wizards here get into an argument and then any semblance of serenity just disappears. Most of the time Master Makarov is the one who ends up stopping everyone from getting out of control, but since he's been gone for a bit I've taken over his job of stopping fights. Getting out of bed I couldn't help but shake this feeling that today was going to be different. As I made my way to the mirror to get ready for the day, I couldn't help but wonder 'Is today the day I finally figure out who or what I am?". Looking in the mirror, 'I'm going to want to dye this eventually' I thought noting my unusual mix of purple and gold hair. I went about my usual routine. It didn't take me long to realize the commotion that was occurring in the guild hall. Apparently Laxus thought it would be fun to try and get on the nerves of one of the newer wizards of fairy tail. Shrugging in pure annoyance I simply walked into the center of the crowd and muttered **Celestial Flare:** a white light shot out of me blinding everyone in the room. I let the flare go on for about 30 seconds before stopping it. "HEY, WHAT WAS THAT FOR!" I heard someone say, clearly by the sound of it Laxus seemed unimpressed. "To stop you all from getting out of hand, Master Makarov should be returning today", my response seemed to cause everyone to quiet down. It had only been about an hour or so after the incident with Laxus when gramps returned. Apparently, the Magic council was displeased with the destruction that one of our teams caused while undertaking a job. Honestly, I couldn't blame him for being as upset as he is. Everyone in the guild seemed to be more reckless than usual nowadays while on a job compared to a few years ago. After his whole spiel about that, I just Returned to my drink at the bar, simply waiting for the day to end. Although I was considering going to my usual spot at the river nearby to just simply meditate. I don't know why but I feel calmer there than I do anywhere else, I think it's got something to do with the water. Although I'm not completely sure as to why.'_

When it comes to paragraph spacing, this particular section was done especially poorly. Not only is this block of text 421 words long, it also has different speakers in the same paragraph.

When it comes to the English language, you technically COULD have the same guy speak 100 times in the same paragraph and it would be considered 'right.' However, I would keep the number of dialogues and thoughts to three max per paragraph. Some people might want to do four or even five, just remember not to go overboard as it can confuse the reader.

Now, back to the excerpt, what exactly can we do to make it better? For this part, I will only be focusing on the spacing.

Excerpt fixed:

 _'Waking up to the sound of a commotion isn't how I would want to start my day. I mean normally everything starts out fine, but then one or two wizards here get into an argument and then any semblance of serenity just disappears. Most of the time Master Makarov is the one who ends up stopping everyone from getting out of control, but since he's been gone for a bit I've taken over his job of stopping fights._

 _Getting out of bed I couldn't help but shake this feeling that today was going to be different. As I made my way to the mirror to get ready for the day, I couldn't help but wonder 'Is today the day I finally figure out who or what I am?"._

 _Looking in the mirror, 'I'm going to want to dye this eventually' I thought noting my unusual mix of purple and gold hair. I went about my usual routine. It didn't take me long to realize the commotion that was occurring in the guild hall. Apparently Laxus thought it would be fun to try and get on the nerves of one of the newer wizards of fairy tail._

 _Shrugging in pure annoyance I simply walked into the center of the crowd and muttered **Celestial Flare:** a white light shot out of me blinding everyone in the room. I let the flare go on for about 30 seconds before stopping it._

 _"HEY, WHAT WAS THAT FOR!" I heard someone say, clearly by the sound of it Laxus seemed unimpressed._

 _"To stop you all from getting out of hand, Master Makarov should be returning today", my response seemed to cause everyone to quiet down. It had only been about an hour or so after the incident with Laxus when gramps returned._

 _Apparently, the Magic council was displeased with the destruction that one of our teams caused while undertaking a job. Honestly, I couldn't blame him for being as upset as he is. Everyone in the guild seemed to be more reckless than usual nowadays while on a job compared to a few years ago._

 _After his whole spiel about that, I just Returned to my drink at the bar, simply waiting for the day to end. Although I was considering going to my usual spot at the river nearby to just simply meditate. I don't know why but I feel calmer there than I do anywhere else, I think it's got something to do with the water. Although I'm not completely sure as to why.'_

Remember, this is how I would PERSONALLY write this. As long as you put all the different speakers are on a new line, then you have reached the minimum. All the paragraph breaks I did is when the speaker is talking about different subjects. In the first paragraph, he was monologuing about the events after waking up, then the next paragraph is him getting up himself.

Paragraph spacing is probably one of the biggest issues in new fanfiction writers. The amount of authors that write giant blocks of text with no breaks is ludicrous. All it takes to correct this is a simple twitch of the thumb. Some of you might not want to even do that, but please try.

 **Capitals:** Capitals are a good way to emphasize certain words, similarly to how I talk when I NEED to make a point. Capitals create stress if used in a sentence, and can indicate shouting in dialogue. Like all things however, if used continuously, it will become platitudinous.

Every literary device you see here have to be used in balance with each other. You might prefer one to the other, but it is important to give the readers a cooldown time between each usage; that way, you don't overwhelm them or cause a redundancy in your own writing.

 **Flow:** Flow is also very important. Although most fanfiction authors wouldn't really notice this as it is a more advanced technique.

What exactly is flow? Flow is basically the way your sentences are structured. In which the words and descriptions link together to form a smooth image. Keep in mind, it is nice to challenge your readers but that is NOT the same as frustrating your readers with sentences that logic and is absent of any coherent thought.

Remember that paragraph I used as an excerpt for purple prose for chapter 3? Well, here it is again:

Here is a little example excerpt I pulled out of my ass:

 _'The sun shone onto Kai's shimmering golden hair. Bright cerulean orbs faced the tranquil landscapes as a light-brown cape billowed in the wind. A single lean, muscular arm lifted up to provide shade, causing a slight ripple in the lapels of the suit that perfectly fit his form. A cloud of dust lifted into the air as raven leather boots moved step by step in harmony with the rise and fall of his chest.'_

Excerpt version 2:

 _'Despite the heat of the sun, Kai wore a simple traveller's suit with a brown cloak tied around his neck. As he travelled towards the city, he lifted an arm to provide some shade. Keeping his eyes focused on his destination, he continued on the forest path.'_

While the first and more prosey paragraph have better flow as it has better sentence variety, it is still, well, purple prose. The second excerpt however, while with less smooth flow, is straight to the point.

It is important when exactly you should use these types of flow. In a regular paragraph where you are simply linking from one action to the next or in a casual description, you should use the second. However, if the mood you are creating is more of a poetic serenity or a romantic symphony, then you might be more inclined to use the first.

 **Conclusion:** All of these techniques are the backbone of your story. While the degree of which you should do it is up to the writer, things such as grammar is not up to debate.

From the usage of punctuation, to the different sets of guidelines for dialogue, it is important all of you, as aspiring writers, should remember and put into practical usage.

Things such as: sentence variety, smoother sentences, paragraph spacing, dialogue tags, labels, and grammar all play a part in your story. Of course, this is less than half the battle. To have a good story, you must have an interesting plotline, well-developed characters, and a well-built world.

 **Theme:** Don't be victims to your laziness! Remember each and every technique and use it to the fullest effect!

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 **Chapter 9 Done! Next Chapter: A Dummy's Guide to Grammar**

 **Make sure you guys check out my other stories!**

 **Read my profile and join my Trope discussion forums!**

 **[ROTLB: The Birth of the Light Bringer]**

 **[ROTLB: Light of Fairies]**

 **[Chef Ramsay]**

 **[A God's Redemption]**

 **[The Nothing Dragon Slayer's Misadventures in Fairy Tail]**

 **Minipa, out!**


	10. CH10 - A Dummy's Guide to Grammar

**Chapter 10 - A Dummy's Guide to Grammar**

 **Okay, so I tried to fit grammar on the last technicality page, but there was actually A LOT of subcategories I had to go through.**

 **Due to that, I decided to make a chapter focusing solely on grammar, that way I can cover far more subjects and instances in which people normally made mistakes on.**

* * *

 **Grammar (SB- to SB++)**

When it comes to grammar, this could be the difference between Mao Zedong's 5-year-plan and a simple inconvenience. For example, in my story 'A God's Redemption', despite my proofreads, I have misused words such as 'bear' and 'bare.'

Thanks to **'Trougue'** for pointing them out, now I can fix them instead of having everyone deal with it. Maybe I should put a 'sorry bad grammar' in the summary because that's what all the kids are doing these days.

Of course, if your own story has these issues, they could just be small mistakes that were missed during the proofreading session. When you have been working on something for a while, you tend to start missing things; sometimes what you need is a new perspective - A.K.A THE BETA READER. MYSTERIOUS PAST. FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH. DEEP WEB.

Okay no; a beta can pick up small grammar mistakes on the first read better than you can on the 10th - simply because you begin to get used to certain errors before subconsciously skipping them. A good way to get through this, if you cannot find a beta, is to read your story out loud. Then, if something sounds weird, read it again carefully.

Defiantly and Definitely: See these two words? They are quite different right? Apparently not to certain fanfiction authors.

Defiantly: Showing open disobedience.

Definitely: Without doubt.

These two words are not close enough to actually typo. Although this is not story breaking, as the context of the sentence will allow the reader to figure out that the author actually meant to use definitely, it is still something that irks me to no end and repeated occurrences of this can actually make me drop a story.

 **Uzukaze's Dragon Sword** by Ds Hero.

Here is an example excerpt from the story above. I will be posting it EXACTLY as it is:

 _'One_

 _The hidden leaf village is all about bonds, but all that change at the 9-tail event. Some mask man has released it from it vessel, Kushina Uzumaki, the Red Dead. Her husband, Minato Namikaze, the Yellow Flash, is the 4th Hokage and had defeated mask man and sealed the 9-tail in their daughter, Naruko N.U. who has orange semi-spike hair and purple-green eyes. Then he uses the extra charka to save his wife. He then explains the village of what happen. They all celebrate of a new hero of the leaf, but the family has forgotten a member, a baby call Naruto Uzukaze, soon to be ex-firstborn son and twin brother, as well as the Maelstrom of Fairy Tail, and right now the whiskered blue-eyes, spiked-blonde and long red-head baby cries alone in the dark because he feels…no he knows that his childhood will be horrible.'_

What? Just actually what? Reading this excerpt gave me multiple seizures and brain aneurysms. I don't think this is even the English language. I can't even begin to comment on the grammar because it is so disastrously fucked I don't think I can find out what it was even if I dived straight into Narnia. I feel like I'm trying to translate the Rosetta stone with a speak-&-spell dropped from the Empire State Building.

Anyone could read the above excerpt and come to the conclusion that this story needs to be rewritten, ASAP! Of course, some people might think the grammar shown in the excerpt above is PROPER grammar. Think about it, why would anyone PURPOSELY write a story with horrible grammar if they simply just didn't know better? I'm sure this author is struggling to improve his own grammar, or perhaps he just doesn't want to put in time and effort to rewrite them.

For the rest of the grammar section, I will be using this same passage to illustrate the proper use of the concepts in each section, similarly to how I did the dialogue section last chapter.

I assume most if not all of you had basic education in English - I understand there are people out there writing fanfiction while not being well versed in the language; this is why you get a Beta. However, if you ARE well versed in English, you should be paying more attention to story breaking grammar mistakes that could confuse your readers.

 **Below definitions taken from ef .com.**

 **Punctuation:** Punctuation is a standardized set of rules that should dictate how your sentences are structured. The placement of punctuation could potentially change the entire meaning of the sentence; even a simple mistake could completely butcher your sentence and frustrate the reader.

The Period: The period is used for many things; the most common usage however, is that it marks the end of a sentence that is not a question or an exclamation. Of course, most if not all of you know this rule; any errors regarding not putting a period is usually because of negligence.

A period can also indicate an abbreviation, for things such as: Dr., Mr., Mrs., and Ms. Of course, in UK English, a period is not required for this type of abbreviation. This is why etc. needs a period; it is an abbreviation for etcetera.

Three dots can be used to make an ellipsis. This formally indicates that only a part of a sentence or a text is used in a quote or is being left to the read to complete a thought. I personally use it to signify long pauses in the same dialogue in place of a comma.

Periods can be used after a single word, in which that word is normally a greeting or a command.

Ex. "Go."

Periods are also used as a placeholder in numbers, such as the period in $1.50.

The Comma: The comma is probably the most useful tool when it comes to building your sentence. It is used to separate phrases, words, or clauses in lists.

Ex. If you do this, this, that, and this.

Remember if you are only listing two things, there is no need for a comma before the and.

The listing could be a series of independent clauses (a separate idea in a sentence), nouns, adjectives, verbs, or phrases.

Using commas in clauses is probably the most difficult; beginner authors might find it confusing as to where exactly to put the comma. While certain comma placements are NOT story breaking, it is still important to use them, but not to the point where it replaces a period and creates a run-on sentence.

Independent clauses, ex. after I voted for Kanye West, I decided to go to the store for some bleach to kill myself, only to find out that the store is closed.

Now, you can easily see that if I were to remove the first comma in the above example, the lack of separation in the clauses would sound weird.

'After I voted for Kanye West I decided to go to the store for some bleach to kill myself.'

This is actually the definition of a run-on sentence; two or more clauses joined together without proper punctuation or conjunction.

Words such as after, when, or even though, are words you would use to begin a sentence with multiple clauses. After the first, a comma MUST be used.

In terms of the second comma, the sentence can still work without it, although, it is still better to have it.

Here are some examples of using commas for nouns, adjectives, and verbs.

Ex. I went to the store to grab a pickle, lube, condoms, and some chocolate.

Ex. Natsu was eager, excited, and pumped for his battle.

Ex. Natsu punched, kicked, and ass-blasted Erigor straight to the moon.

The next part of commas are used, is to separate a series of phrases.

Ex. The Ice Dragon Slayer revealed his past, crush-blushed every single girl, defeated Gildarts, and then one-shotted Acnologia.

After listing or separating a series of whatever, a comma is also used to enclose details that authors would often put in brackets.

Ex. Natsu, the son of Igneel, was anxious to join the S-class exam.

Notice how I used a comma to say 'the son of Igneel?' Within the two commas, I can add whatever detail or comment that is non-essential. This sentence can simply be replaced with 'The son of Igneel was anxious to join the S-class exam,' which removed the need for commas. However, this method can be used to introduce more sentence variety.

Here is one that most of you know how to do already: the participial phrases! For those of you who do not know what a participle is, it is a verbal form, such as burning, burned, or burnt, used as an adjective, which is often used to describe the state of a noun.

Ex. A burning log.

Now, a participial phrase is a sentence beginning with a participle that modifies the subject in the sentence. Most if not all of you do this in your own stories, even if you don't know what it's called!

Ex. Voting for Trump, I felt a great regret as I could not put my ballot for Harambe.

Ex. Looking towards the East, I walked towards my definition.

Instead of saying 'I walked towards my definition while looking towards the east,' the above example can be used as it offers more sentence variety while having the same meaning.

 **A Common Mistake** for people that use participial phrases are the dreaded DANGLING PARTICIPLES. For the most part, most people don't really know they are using a dangling participle, as to the author, the meaning of the sentence is pretty well understood. However, to the readers, they might get confused because a dangling participle modifies the wrong subject.

Ex. Punching his hardest, the sandbag buckled under the force.

Let us assume that it was Natsu wishing he was stronger; if you were to look at the sentence, the 'punching' part is modifying the sandbag! Now, we know that the sandbag can't really punch because it is an inanimate object! However, due to the dangling participle, the sentence makes it seem that way!

To fix this error, you have to reverse the placement of subjects in the second clause.

Ex. Punching his hardest, Natsu felt the sandbag buckle under the force.

The Exclamation Mark: The purpose of the '!' is actually pretty simple to understand. Most if not all authors understand its usage. However, for those of you who do not know, the '!' is used to express astonishment, surprise, excitement, or to emphasize a comment in a short, sharp phase.

Ex. Help! He's coming for me!

In the example, I'm using the '!' to express the subject's fear and anxiousness.

The Question Mark: A relatively simple tool to use. The question mark is used to end any and all direct questions.

Ex. What is your name?

Now, something that might confuse you, is the usage of question marks in a dialogue not at the end of a sentence.

Ex. "Why did you come?" Natsu asked.

In this case, a question mark AND an exclamation mark can be seen the same as a comma in terms of what follows after. The question or exclamation mark within the dialogue does not signify the end of the sentence.

The Colon: A colon is used to expand on the sentence preceding it, often introducing a list elaborating whatever was previously stated.

Ex. Natsu had three things for dinner: fire, fire, and some more fire.

In regards to the '?', '!', and ':', all three types of punctuation are relatively to understand. Just make sure to follow the set standards and not to add unnecessary transitions or modifiers.

The Semicolon: Unlike a period of a comma, a semicolon rests somewhere in-between. It can be used to join phrases and clauses that are linked by theme without using a conjunction.

Ex. Harems are trash; they are unrealistic.

The semicolon in this sentence is replacing ',because.'

The other usage for a semicolon is when objects in a list have enclosed details already using commas. This is to avoid confusion as to where the individual objects actually are in a list.

Ex. Many of the Fairy Tail Mages: Natsu, the son of Igneel; Gray, the ice devil slayer; Erza, the Titania, were all excited for the upcoming Grand Magic Games.

The Hyphen: For the most part, hyphens are used to join two words or parts of words together. This is to avoid confusion or ambiguity in the meaning when the words are done without a hyphen. These are known as compound words.

Ex. Year-old.

Ex. Son-in-law.

There are MANY different situations where you might use a compound word. I won't list them here but if you are unsure whether or not to use them, just look it up on google.

Another usage of the hyphen is when it is being used as dashes. They are used to add parenthetical statements in the same way you would use brackets.

Ex. 99.9% of fanfiction readers think Minipa is an edgy cunt - he is.

Now, the usage of parenthesis is the same way; the parts after the dash can simply be enclosed in them for the same effect.

Ex. 99.9% of fanfiction readers think Minipa is an edgy cunt (he is).

Now that we finished a basic tutorial for punctuation and its subcategories, I will be fixing all the punctuation errors in the original excerpt.

 _'One_

 _The hidden leaf village is all about bonds, but all that change at the 9-tail event. Some mask man has released it from it vessel, Kushina Uzumaki, the Red Dead. Her husband, Minato Namikaze, the Yellow Flash, is the 4th Hokage and had defeated the mask man and sealed the 9-tail in their daughter, Naruko N.U. **,** who has orange semi-spike hair and purple-green eyes. Then **,** he uses the extra charka to save his wife. He then explains the village of what happen. They all celebrate of a new hero of the leaf, but the family has forgotten a member, a baby call Naruto Uzukaze, soon to be ex-firstborn son and twin brother, as well as the Maelstrom of Fairy Tail **;** right now **,** the whiskered blue-eyes, spiked-blonde and long red-head baby cries alone in the dark because he feels…no **,** he knows **,** that his childhood will be horrible.'_

I didn't do anything to the 'One' because the author was using it as a line break. For those of you that do this, please use the line break function as it is simply cleaner than XXXXXXXXNARUTOXXXXXXXX, or something of the sort. I sometimes use an ellipsis as a line break if there are too many scene changes; this is so I do not spam line breaks to the point where it looks messy.

Now, reading that passage, despite all the missing words and wrong tenses, the punctuation was actually pretty good! Most of the enclosed information were done properly; I only have to change six things!

The first change was right after 'Naruko N.U.' If you read the phrase after that carefully, you will realize that, the entire portion can be considered the same as enclosed information. Of course, it is the end of the sentence; however, a comma should still be right there at the beginning.

The second change, is on the sentence right after. I put the comma before then because in this case, it is used similarly to 'however.' When doing this, it is grammatically correct to put a comma after the word 'then' to separate the clause.

The third change is after 'right now.' The reason for this is similar to the second change.

The fourth change is more of my own preference; I took out the comma and 'and' to replace it with a semicolon.

The fifth and sixth change are due to the tone of the sentence. In the final phrase, after the ellipsis, I put a comma after 'no' because the author was using it in a way to correct a previous statement. The comma after 'knows' is there as that is the corrected statement. If I were to remove the last comma, and simply left it as 'he knows that his childhood will be horrible,' then it wouldn't have the same tone of voice that the author is trying to achieve.

Of course once we move on to the next aspects of grammar, we will continue to build on this excerpt, until it is completely grammatically correct.

 **Verb Tenses**

Verb tenses are rather tricky in writing, as there are well over twenty different types of them.

I won't be going every single one of them; instead, I will be modifying the excerpt in a step-by-step case study.

Before I continue, some of you might be wondering, isn't the tenses in these discussions inconsistent? While it might have been easier to simply stick with past or present, some of my direct instructions to you, the reader, might have actually sounded awkward had that been the case.

As you can see, my past paragraph were all done with past tense. This is because the paragraph is more of a story-telling paragraph as opposed to pure instruction.

Here is an example of what that might have sounded like.

Ex. Make sure you did this.

See how weird that sounds? If I was giving you instructions on a certain technique, it would simply be better if I wrote it as: make sure you do this.

 _'One_

 _The hidden leaf village is all about bonds, but all that change **d** at the 9-tail event. Some mask **ed** man ha **d** released it from it **s** vessel, Kushina Uzumaki, the Red Dead. Her husband, Minato Namikaze, the Yellow Flash, **was** the 4th Hokage and had defeated the mask **ed** man and sealed the 9-tail **s** in their daughter, Naruko N.U., who **had** orange semi-spike **d** hair and purple-green eyes. Then, he **used** the extra charka to save his wife. He then explain **ed** the village of what happen **ed**. They all celebrate **d** of a new hero of the leaf, but the family has forgotten a member, a baby call **ed** Naruto Uzukaze, soon to be ex-firstborn son and twin brother, as well as the Maelstrom of Fairy Tail; right now, the whiskered blue-eyes, spiked-blonde and long red-head **ed** baby crie **d** alone in the dark because he fe **lt** …no, he kn **ew** , that his childhood w **ould** be horrible.'_

Okay, there are a lot of errors; if there is a repeated error, then I won't explain it.

The first change is on the word 'change.' In a story telling scenario like this one, past tense should be used for all your verbs, unless you have a past participle, etc. I added a 'd' after the word to make it correct.

The second change is similar; however, it is different enough to warrant an explanation. The sentence itself used 'mask man.' Without the 'ed' at the end, it makes it seem that the sentence is referring to some sort of mask salesman, as opposed to a man wearing a mask.

The third, fifth, seventh, change is simply wrong tense.

Fourth change added an 's' to make 'it' into its possessive form.

Sixth and eighth change is the same as the second.

Ninth, tenth, eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth change is all wrong tense.

Jesus Christ, if one of you wrote something where 80% of all the verbs are in the wrong tense, you should consider paying more attention in English class.

Fourteenth change is the same as the second.

Fifteenth, sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth are all wrong tenses.

What does this mean? You might be wondering, when should I use present, and when should I use past? To keep it simple, if you are storytelling, always use the past tense when referring to verbs. It is easy to accidentally skip over a wrong tense in the proof reading session; that is why you get a beta to catch any mistakes you might have missed!

Now we have went through the common problems, I will now continue to change the excerpt until it has become how I would write it. However, I am omitting stylistic preferences for this particular draft.

 _'One_

 _The hidden leaf village is all about bonds **; however,** all that changed at the 9-tail **s** event. Some masked man had released **the demon** from its vessel, Kushina Uzumaki, the Red Dead. Her husband, Minato Namikaze, the Yellow Flash, was the 4th Hokage and had defeated the masked man, then sealing the 9-tails in their daughter, Naruko N.U., who had orange semi-spiked hair and purple-green eyes. Then, he used the extra **chakra** to save his wife. He then explained **to** the village **on** what happened. They all celebrated **a** new hero of the leaf, but the family has forgotten a member, a baby **named** Naruto Uzukaze, soon to be ex-firstborn son and twin brother, as well as the Maelstrom of Fairy Tail; right now, the whiskered blue-eye **d** , spiked-blonde and long red-headed baby cried alone in the dark because he felt…no, he knew, that his childhood would be horrible.'_

The first change is because the second phrase contradicted the first. In instances like this one, I would use however, preceded by a semicolon.

The second change is simply the wrong label; the Nine-Tailed Fox is also called the Nine-Tails. If you are using '9-tails event' to describe its attack on Konoha, then it should be the correct label.

The third change is because of the ambiguity of the subject. Now, some of you might realize that it was referring to the Nine-Tailed Fox as an individual. However, the previous mention of it is the Nine-Tailed Fox's ATTACK, which could actually confuse the subject in question.

The fourth change is simply a misspelling of 'chakra.'

The fifth, sixth and seventh change are wrong and missing words.

The eighth change, although TECHNICALLY correct, it is better to used 'named' as 'called' is generally used to refer to places or landmarks.

The final change is the same as the 'masked man' change. I did not put it in the previous part because it is slightly different. The original compound word was 'blue-eyes;' however, this does not actually work for the sentence. Blue-eyes is just eyes that are blue, while blue-eyed, is used when someone HAS blue eyes.

Now that we got all the standard shit out of the way, I will now change the excerpt to how _I_ would write it.

 **Here's a little challenge for all of you reading the grammar chapter: leave a review of all the changes you spot from the previous version of the excerpt, to the one I am about to show you.**

 _'One_

 _The hidden leaf village, Konoha, is all about bonds; however, all of that changed when the Nine-Tailed Fox attacked. A man in a mask had released the demon from its vessel, Kushina Uzumaki, the Red Dead. Her husband, Minato Namikaze, the Yellow Flash, was the 4th Hokage. He had defeated, with great effort, the masked man. The blonde shinobi then sealed the Nine-Tails in their daughter, Naruko Namikaze Uzumaki, who had slightly spiky orange hair and violet eyes. Then, he used his remaining chakra to save his wife._

 _After, he explained to the village on what happened. Hearing the news, they all celebrated a new hero of the leaf, but the family has forgotten a member, a baby named Naruto Uzukaze, soon to be ex-firstborn son, ex-twin-brother, and Maelstrom of Fairy Tail; right now, the baby, who had a combination of blonde and red hair, blue eyes, and whisker-like birthmarks, cried alone in the dark because he felt…no, he knew, that his childhood would be horrible.'_

Now, the finished product might be GRAMMATICALLY correct; it is still FAR from perfect. Soon, we will discuss world building and story building!

 **Conclusion:** Grammar is responsible for the structure of your story. If you misuse it, you can easily end up changing the meaning of each sentence. If this is something you struggle with, please read through the chapters and the examples to make sure you understand each concept.

If you need someone to check on your work, ask a beta! Some mistakes might simply be not understanding; however, many are simply just proofreading misses.

 **Theme:** Learn the basics before writing, ask for help! Remember, mistakes are for learning, not self-pity!

For those of you that want to learn about more aspects of grammar, check out !

 **.**

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 **Chapter 10 Done! Next Chapter: Fairy Tail Tropes**

 **Make sure you guys check out my other stories!**

 **Read my profile and join my Trope discussion forums!**

 **[ROTLB: The Birth of the Light Bringer]**

 **[ROTLB: Light of Fairies]**

 **[Chef Ramsay]**

 **[A God's Redemption]**

 **[The Nothing Dragon Slayer's Misadventures in Fairy Tail]**

 **Minipa, out!**


	11. CH11 - Fairy Tail Tropes

**Chapter 11 - Fairy Tail Tropes**

 **Every fandom has their own tropes; Naruto has things like Strong Naruto and Rinnegan Naruto, while Fairy Tail has darker Natsu, Acnologia Dragon Slayer, Lucy leaves Fairy Tail stories, etc.**

 **Many times, these tropes are often done horribly as common storylines are used by inexperienced writers - especially if they are first timers that were inspired by a more experienced author using the same storyline. On Fanfiction, there are very few stories using these story lines that are actually 'good' in the sense it has good structure, grammar, and basically a well-developed story skeleton.**

 **However, for those of you interested in writing with these plot lines, I will be helping you with suggestions that could potentially fix plot holes or common traps.**

 **WARNING: RANTY CHAPTER!**

* * *

 **Introduction to Fairy Tail Specific AU's:** After covering most if not all the main AU's that plague the fandom, I am going to give a brief introduction to the Fairy Tail specific AU's, or rather, overused story lines.

I'm sure that there are many more types of AU's I didn't mention. These include: Detective AU's, Gladiator AU's, and many others. However, I don't see enough stories for them to drastically change the fandom. Therefore, I will not be doing a spiel on them. There are actually a HUGE list of AU's that I won't really cover because they are far fewer compared to the ones I have already mentioned.

Now, in the list of Fairy Tail specific AU's, I will be covering things such as: Mating Season, Lucy leaves Fairy Tail, Darker Natsu, Natsu leaving, and even just general OC stories.

For OC stories, I won't be covering their different aspects of horribleness; most of that is already done in the Mary Sue section. I will be mainly talking about the overused story lines that these stories tend to have.

 **Lucy Leaves Fairy Tail:** Remember what I said about coagulated bull semen being this (for those of you that read my Nothing Dragon Slayer story)? Well, I take it back because bull semen can actually be used for breeding purposes. This type of story should stay far, FAR away from any sort of reproductive process of ANYTHING so we don't devolve 100,000 years in a single generation.

Again, whoever thought of this trope needs to die five times, turn into a zombie, then thrown into Chernobyl. This is absolutely awful, appalling. OOCness is almost a complete requirement for like this as they pretty much turn half the characters into an OC.

Not only that, this usually follow the same formula. Here it is below.

Lucy considered 'weak' + scorn from Team Natsu + Lisanna being OOC (bitch) + Random OC training her or Dragon Queen Lucy + Returning God-like as an OC looking like Lucy = Lucy leaves Fairy Tail!

Another weird thing is, people started putting things like: 'another cliché' or 'another Lucy Leaves Fairy Tail'. Many authors know it is cliché yet, they still write it, do a bad job, then put it in the summaries. You would expect them to actually know how to write if they are purposely writing a cliché story. However, this is simply not the case. I don't understand if they are simply putting that as the title or summary because they are shamelessly writing it regardless if the premise is shit, or they are trying to use reverse psychology to get readers.

Anyways, scorn and bash fics are a sign of inexperienced authors that cannot write the character properly. The ONLY advantage of these type of stories is that at least the author has the _decency_ to put it in their summary so I wouldn't have to expose myself to A5 Kobe cow dung.

Let us dissect the elements of Lucy leaving Fairy Tail stories and I shall tell reveal to you the common traps authors tend to fall in and how YOU can avoid getting kicked in the literary dick.

Lucy being Scorned: Did you guys not read the Manga, or for anime watchers, the anime? Fairy Tail is NOTORIOUS for the level of Nakama power it shows and in the Phantom Lord Arc ALONE, EVERYBODY at the guild risked their FUCKING LIVES for Lucy. You can't just denounce canon shit like that just to make your setting possible.

Every fucking Fairy Tail member cares for Lucy because she is family. Just because Lisanna comes back, or she is a little lacking on the brute force side, it doesn't mean she will get kicked out of Team Natsu or get bad mouthed by every fucking person in the guild.

Lucy is NOT as weak as she is portrayed just as how Natsu is NOT as dumb as he is often portrayed. Seriously he is sometimes written dumber than new players in pubg. Remember how she was about to shit on Flare? Lucy is NOT weak, and Natsu, ESPECIALLY NATSU, WOULD EVER kick her out for being weak. Hey, remember Happy? The member of Team Natsu that is technically the weakest physically? Imagine Natsu kicking out Happy. That's how stupid this fucking setting is.

Lisanna being written HORRIBLY wrong: Now this is just stupid, Lisanna is just as sweet if not sweeter than her sister and would NEVER scorn anyone in the guild. She's like the little sister that befriends EVERYONE and is just a nice girl in general. She would never have some sort of shitty love triangle with Lucy WHICH will be covered later as Lisanna is often vilified whereas the NaLu pairing has no struggle or action.

 **Heavenly Sorrow** by GrayIceEternal

Here is an excerpt from the above story regarding how Lisanna is portrayed:

 _"Hey, do you guys want to go on a mission?" Lucy asked with a gigantic grin on her face. Nobody answered her so her smile began to falter. "Guys, did you hear me? I'm asking if you guys want to go on a mission with me." Still no answer, but then Lisanna abruptly stood up and grabbed Lucy's wrist, dragging her outisde. Over he shoulder Lisanna told the rest of Team Natsu to stay there._

 _Once outside Lucy said, "This is my first time ever talking to you, isn't it? Nice to meet you, I'm Lucy."_

 _"Shut up, you spoiled princess." Lucy could only stare at Lisanna after hearing her rude comment. Lisanna's eyes held an evil glint. "Can't say anything to defend yourself, huh? Well since you're just a spoiled blonde princess I'll spell this out for you. You. Are. Not. Wanted. Anymore." Lisanna put an extra emphasis on the "wanted."_

 _Lucy blinked. She tried to speak, but no noise came out of her shaking lips. "What?" she finally squeaked._

 _Lisanna gave a nefarious smirk. "You heard me. You are not wanted anymore. Nobody wants you because you were just a replacement for me." She then gave a small frown that looked almost like a pout. "Although they really could've done better. I mean look at you, you look so pathetic. Ah well, I guess the grief just made them choose whoever they could get.'_

Even in the Fairy Tail wiki, Lisanna's personality is a NICE girl that can be friends with anyone. She is friends with Lucy just like it's SUPPOSED to be in canon.

She will not just randomly become a bitch. You cannot just turn a character into an OC just because you want to make the MC look better. This is called 'bashing', this means that the author vilifies another character as a plot point or to boast the main character - which in this case, is Lucy.

Random Training: When Lucy leaves Fairy Tail, she often encounters a random fuck head that will train her for anywhere between 1-7 years (Ex. Training in between the time skip) then become a GOD-LIKE LIVING TRIBUNAL SAITAMA SUPER SAIYAN 25 GENDERBENT NARUTO. Completely and UTTERLY steam rolls every fucking person despite never explaining what or how she did so - sometimes even becomes a reverse harem *shudders*.

Time skips are a useful tool, but most of the time they are used so incorrectly you might as well skip 40 years of American history.

 **The Queen of the Dragon Realm** by Celestial Steps

The story above has so many big No-no's that I cringe just thinking of it. First she becomes the DRAGON FUCKING QUEEN AFTER she gets kicked out of Team Natsu. Then she joins an OC guild WITH A 9 YEAR OLD that could use ICE GOD SLAYER MAGIC AND WATER DRAGON SLAYER MAGIC. JESUS.

Not only does the entire guild have like 10 slayers altogether WITH an elemental dragon slayer AND god slayer. This story is a humongous example of the biggest No-no in all the world, and is a tainted spot in humanity's history that should be erased from all of existence. It's like this author read all of my Sue traits and discussion notes, and decided to bunch them altogether for a cacophonical orchestrated performance of toilet music.

Allow me to bullshit an excerpt:

 _I was trailing behind my friends. Natsu, Gray, Erza, they are so much stronger than me…yet they are so caring. I was always the weak link, I always had to be saved! I know they will never think that way, but I just feel SO USELESS._

 _I decided, I will go out on my own to train, so I can become stronger. Strong enough to not be a burden. I'm sorry guys for leaving, but I will return. This message, should let them know where I am, and that I am safe._

 _…_

 _I have heard of a mage who was capable of using the magic of the stars, if I can find him, maybe he will teach me!_

See how easy that is? Lucy leaves in a more realistic setting, and doesn't just up and finds a random OC to train her. She STRUGGLES to find such a mage; a chapter is done on her journey to find the mage could be done. Then another chapter can be done for the reactions of Fairy Tail - they will all be saddened she thought this way, to show that they are still family.

Then Lucy could learn…let's say star magic (the same shit Urano Metria was based off of), INSTEAD of becoming a god damned dragon slayer OR HELL FORBID THE QUEEN OF ALL DRAGONS ERRRMEEEHHGERRD. If she learns a weaker version of Jellal's Heavenly Body Magic, I could actually believe it; her entire family line are celestial spirit wizards. This means the likelihood that they have an affinity to various forms of star magic would be high.

Hell, instead of training she can even leave and realize her internal struggles whereas the entire quest outside of Fairy Tail was just her finding herself and gaining INNER strength. That would be a good read. Then she returns to Fairy Tail getting slightly more strength but far more confidence. Then the other members of Team Natsu would actively help her get stronger to reinforce their relationships! Hell this could even lead to a believable NaLu.

This setting should just not be done at all. If this was a plate of food it would be a bowl of apples dipped in soy sauce topped with a gallon of sour cream.

Objectively speaking, that is the most horrid combination of food and is an A-ranked culinary disaster; BUT, there ARE people that will like it.

HOWEVER, if you are so set on writing some form of this story, then I might have a suggestion for you. Assuming you have already thought of all the basic world building questions and are quite well-versed with each individual character, we can move onto an example plot line.

Just like the above where Lucy leaves Fairy Tail because SHE herself thinks she is weak, some tropes CAN be done well; tropes that require OOC and Sue traits just to be possible should not exist. Now, if you are going for a story like this, the example is a good start. Lucy COULD feel weak although she probably won't leave the guild just to do that. She might just go on a training trip without actually leaving the guild but more like her personal mission. It wouldn't be as dramatic or as bash worthy as some authors portray it but it COULD potentially happen that way.

If you plan on making a strong Lucy, I would personally avoid over done tropes such as: Dragon Queen Lucy which will be covered or just dragon slayer Lucy in general. Lucy should also not be some SUPER STALIN COMMUNIST SOVIET UNION NUKE MACHINE that dumps every fucking villain into the gulag.

Balance her powers, make her character within the realm of acceptable OOC - make sure to explain this properly and with proper buildup! When she does return, it shouldn't turn into a bash fic nor should she receive scorn from any of the Fairy Tail members.

Seriously Bash fics give me cancer.

 **Dragon Queen Lucy:** You know it! The precursor story line that is often bundled with the almighty fuckery that is the 'Lucy Leaves Fairy Tail' stories. This is like the DLC to an already shitty game that you will be forced to buy anyway because you already invested thousands of hours into something.

This is a Lucy Dragon Queen story where Layla was the dragon queen, and it is also a reverse harem.

 **Lucy Dragon Queen** by Seetibet

The general plot itself could work with a good premise, but the premise itself is usually what causes OOC and Sue traits.

If someone builds an extensive-as-fuck history in their world building that leads up to Dragon Queen Lucy, then I'll be a monkey's uncle; seriously, anyone who is that competent in world building wouldn't use this premise unless challenged by another author.

This is not one of those stories I would encourage that can be done well, for something this stupid usually ends up with massive amounts of plot holes.

Again, if you have a massive boner for Lucy Dragon Queen stories, then I will offer my two cents and hopefully point you in the right direction.

When it comes to Dragon Queen Lucy, that name itself already implies changes to the canon history. Which means, guess what? WORLD BUILD WORLD BUILD. That is literally the single most important words of writing ANY story. To plan out characters, arcs, history, and plot before writing it is so important. Often times, this is not done and the author just writes chapter by chapter with maybe 10 lines of scattered notes.

Thanks to **Lorgan Aurelian** for his suggestions on future generation OC's!

 **Future Generations:** Ever read a story that features the children of the canon cast? The thing is that, this story line isn't necessarily bad by itself. As it is basically what happens decades after canon.

Now, the real issue of such a premise is that all the main characters (other than the canon cast parent cameos) will be mainly OC. All the arcs will be OC and many magics would be OC.

Ex. Natsu and Lucy's child can use some sort of fire magic and have keys as well - so this is pretty easy to make by itself.

But then, what about the villains? Arcs? This premise leaves mostly EVERYTHING to the author. The majority of authors wouldn't really do a good job doing this premise and they will most likely pump out another garbage Mary Sue OC straight out of the shit factory then dump then all on the cluttered abomination of chapters they call a story.

Here are some common problems that future generation authors tend to stumble on:

Personalities: For your future generation characters, whether they are the next generation or even the next-next generation, should have their own characters that are separate from their parents. Of course, children would often inherit some of their tendencies from their fathers, but they should not be half of the dad and half of the mom slapped on in a perfect divide.

Ex. Gajeel and Levy's son in **The Rest of Their Lives** by Kurisu313 had an affinity for Fire Magic, with Solid Script magic as well! He was able to use both magics in his own unique style instead of being some Metal Solid Script Dragon Slayer that could eat paper.

This is especially prominent when the story starts out with the OC's already as adults, and then we see a pink haired Lucy wearing Natsu's scarf that says AYE to Erza's son.

The point of future generation OC's is that we see a unique character that has traits of the people who we know and love, not a copy and paste that was scrambled by a broken Chinese blender.

Ex. Many children will often model their own characteristics on their parents, this could also extend to political and ESPECIALLY religious beliefs themselves. While it is understandable that a 13-year-old child wouldn't exactly have developed their personal world views, it is also NOT understandable when a 20-year-old is still an exact copy of their parents.

A coming of age portion of future generations is very important to their character development. Whether or not they have their own morals, world views, or even just outlooks on life, these perspectives are integral to every unique character!

You can't just pull the old copy and paste on canon characters to create their children. Not only is this lazy, but it's retarded as fuck. If you have an essay you copied and pasted from your friend and edited some words, chances are, you will get a failing mark.

Magic: Ahh, magic. The perfect place for imagination to unravel, or rather a 90-degree dive straight to the bottom of a landfill. In addition to the absurd dragon slayer elements, future generation OC's tend to be a complete copy of their parent's magics.

 **Fairy Tail: Dragon King** by EnderDragneel

The OC in this Story, Nashi, is Lucy and Natsu's daughter - as if that could be anymore fucking obvious. THEN, she is also a Fire Dragon Slayer. Those are no-no's you should never have.

 **The Future Guild** by Kurisu313

This OC in the story, Gabriel Scarlett, is the son of Erza and Jellal. He uses Body Reinforcement Magic and Requip as his secondary. This is a much better example of 'Future Generation' as he has a unique magic not related to his parents, while at the same time having parts of his parents magic.

Now, when it comes to inheriting magic, Mashima didn't explain how magical traits were inherited. If we look at the Dreyar family line, we see Yuri Dreyar with Lightning Magic. His son, Makarov Dreyar, had Titan Magic as well as various forms of Light Magic. Of course, the magic of the mothers were never revealed so it is indeed possible that if Yuri's wife was also a lightning mage, Makarov would have been one as well.

However, despite NATURAL AFFINITIES that could be inherited from their parents, it doesn't affect the type of magic they might CHOOSE to learn.

Ex. Laxus was born with a weak body, he might have learned another type of magic if Ivan didn't implant the Lacrima in his body.

Oh yeah, WORLD BUILD YOU FUCKERS.

Another thing before I finish this section.

Nashi: Why this name? I highly doubt Mashima ever named that picture of Lucy's daughter he drew Nashi. Even IF he did, people have been using Nashi as backup for lack of intelligence for ages.

Do you guys even know where Nashi comes from?

Natsu Dragneel is pronounced Natsu Doraguniru.

Lucy Heartfilia is pronounced Rushi Hatofiria.

Natsu. Rushi.

Na-tsu. Ru-shi.

NaRu = Nalu. NaShi = Nacy.

You guys might as well named the pink-haired Lucy dragon slayer with a scarf fucking Nalu because that's how stupid it is.

Whoever uses Nashi as a name should just go work for Mashima himself, your lack of imagination would have been great help in the Alvarez Arc. Otherwise, buy 10,000 gallons of Chlorox, dump it all into a swimming pool, and invite all your Nashi friends for a pool party.

This is one of the settings that can be done WELL; all those traits should be used properly and not spammed or actively avoided.

 **Complete OC Guilds:** While similar to the above, this story line is an even bigger potential trap for authors as this will require SIGNIFICANTLY more world building than future generations. Every single character, guild, guild history, how they relate to the world will have to be created.

How they interact with other guilds, how they interact with each other, and which character is the center of the story?

All these questions have to be asked and answered in detail for the story to be GOOD; not only that, each and every single one of these questions has to be answered in a way in which any potential Mary Sue traits must have a somewhat-logical explanation.

If you have a guild with ten fucking Gildarts then good luck bullshitting your way out of that one!

A good story is not some story with decent grammar but with 10 people in the guild that are all dragon slayers. That is not even any story, that is just assorted awfulness lined with diabetes all ground up into a pile of pureed just to be consumed and shat out by a dying dog.

Also, why the FUCK are OC guild authors giving a huge list of their character biographies at the beginning of the chapter? Who the fuck invented this type of dog shit? Who? Tell me and I will be under their bed by morning. WHY.

Why is SYOC a thing? Who invented this? It's like 'Hey I'm too bloody lazy to make my own OC's so I will have my readers do it for me and probably write them horribly too.

 **The Shadow Dimir Guild** by BalorV

So many people do SYOC's in OC guilds. I would like to see just ONE story where the author makes every single OC themselves.

Okay enough of this ranting, let's get to explaining why this is an issue. When it comes to OC guilds, people are making many OC's often times, with, you know it, dragon slayer magic. You might end up with a jumbled distortion of deformed dragon roars because every single fuck head wants their potato dragon slayer to be a part of the guild.

Then you end up getting an entire guild of S-class mages with lost magics because why the fuck not?

To make ONE character not Mary Sue is already a challenge; when you have first time authors writing 10 fucking OC's that they themselves probably didn't even make except for that one fuck, then you got a problem. 10 Mary Sues. My eyes are already fucking bleeding.

Every single one of these OC's will have Mary Sue traits for the sole purpose of making them seem cooler. Seriously, you are asking people to spam OC's on your review section just to add to your story. Many of them probably have never written a story.

Also, why the reviews? Is it too hard to just PM the author instead of spamming the reviews?

Now, I'm going to go through the review sections and find some of the OC examples given by the authors that were probably used in the actual story.

Angelina Draco by DragonGirlAngel

Age: 13

Light green hair, pale skin, emerald eyes

Personality: cheerful

Plant dragon slayer ( moves under history )

She was abandoned at the age of 3 and found by Esmeralda the plant dragon. Esmeralda abandoned her that day the dragons disappeared. She is currently looking for a home.

Spells: plant dragon roar, wing slash, talon, vine wip, twirling tree storm, rare attack poison tree spindle.

( female )

Lunick by Martyn

Nickname(s): Loon, Sun God and/or Monkey.

Age: 14.

Guild: Shadow Dimir.

Gender: Male.

Rank: Normal ranking.

Hair: Spiky and gold that almost cover his eyes (mostly held back by a headband).

Eyes: Mismatched - green on right and red on left.

Height: Five feet.

Skin: Very well tanned.

Build: Lean and flexible.

Guild Mark: Gold and on the centre of his forehead.

Ok so these are just some examples, but Plant Dragon Slayer with green hair? See the naming schemes? See those random fucking mismatching eye colours? This is the shit that gets made and sent into OC guilds. I would post more for the second OC but it was too bloody long, long story short, the OC is some S-class mage using sun magic.

However, having such a long explanation is GOOD! The first OC example was posted as it is. The second actually told about the parentage and explained some of the magic, despite some of them not exactly making sense. The heterochromia is definitely a MS trait though.

Rant: Nick Name: Sun God. What? WHAT? Who the actual fuck would call this preteen some fucking name such as SUN GOD? Monkey would be the most appropriate name.

Do you guys start to understand? It is VERY, EXTREMELY, UNNATURALLY, SENSELESSLY, IRRATIONALLY, LUDICROUSLY easy to fall into the trap of making the OC a Mary Sue just to make them better.

For those of you planning on writing OC Guilds, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, get some experience just writing a normal OC story. Remember, you have to learn to crawl before you learn to walk.

Keep in mind, that OC Guilds CAN be done well; the thing is, if you leave it up to the readers to make some of the characters, chances are they are going to be Mary Sue. A new guild of mages shouldn't have 12 different subcategories of elemental dragon slayers, nor should they have more than 2-3 lost magics. Fairy Tail had just one at the beginning when Natsu was the only one using Dragon Slayer Magic.

 **Original Characters:** This section of the discussion is just a little introduction on the concept of OC's.

Everybody loves OC's! It's nice as an author to change part of the story and make a 'what-if' fic; basically in the summary, they say something like 'What-if Gray had a little sister', etc. It's also fun as a reader to see the new addition and what changes they will make to canon.

But herein lies the problem.

Like the **Mary Sue traits** I have discussed in discussion I and II, the OC's tend to be flooded with those issues.

 **Fatalist Fics** are straight dog shit boring and should not be made.

 **OCxHarem** is the literary holocaust and should just be compressed into a ball of radioactive waste and fired into space.

For those of you considering writing an OC story, please read the trope discussions and ask yourself, is this particular trait on my OC important to the plot? At the very least, is this trait explained? Read your story as if you are beta'ing it yourself, or get a beta to do it for you because it's easy to get careless.

 **Sibling OC's** : Remember discussion 2? This is the expansion of sibling OC's; basically the premise of the story is that a brother or sister of canon will be long lost and then return.

It is actually quite a repeated trope that is riddled with horrible and Mary Sue OC's.

I have already established that Twin Dragons of Fairy is a story riddled with more holes than French cheese. Therefore I will use another example for the sibling OC story.

 **The Brother of Erza Scarlet** by The Masked Writer 200

The story above shows the older brother of Erza Scarlet - who is arguably Sueish but is far better than the Twin Dragon shit I stopped reading after chapter 1. Basically that's the story line, a brother or sister of a Fairy Tail canon character returns.

While this is indeed a trope, I will say again that this doesn't make it bad. It is the OC's that get the Sue traits without any logical reason as to why. Then topped off with horrible power scaling and plot development making many of these stories a horrible read.

It doesn't matter if you want an OC that is distantly related to Laxus's dog or whatever the fuck, it is important to use the basic skills to build the character properly so you can avoid the common traps.

 **Mating Season:** Yet another fucking reason to write smut or horrible ships without proper development. Often related to all the dragon slayers where words such as marking or mating would be key words. This literally just accelerates ships and they do some bullshit where they can make their 'mates' so horny they will want to fuck anytime anywhere.

 **Life as a Dragon Slayer** by NatsuxWendy

This is also a bash-fic, which is also a cancerous piece of shit.

Mating Season is, IMO, far worse than fucking school AU's because the whole plot of the story is just how they can deal with horniness. Do I need to go even more? Characters become OOC in favour of 'lust' and they become sex craved fuck lords where the girls have no other purpose than to just for lemon scenes.

This is one of those settings that should just not be done, period. Anything you can do to this setting regardless of competency will end up in a forced smut and that is just doing all the characters a disservice and shaming your entire family.

 **Darker Natsu - Acnologia the Dragon Daddy:** Oh boy, here comes the straight up OOC into a pink-haired OC that just so happens to be a snowflake and an edgy Jerk-Sue; for darker Natsu stories that involve him being trained by Acnologia, that is straight Sue trait - Unbound.

Acnologia will NEVER train a dragon slayer. First plot hole.

Natsu will NOT join Fairy Tail if he indeed was darker and trained by Acnologia. Second Plot Hole.

And somehow darker Natsu stories still end up with a harem? Can somebody that isn't retard-level intelligence explain just why this is.

 **Story of the black dragon's child** by KiyoshiWakeshima

So the above story is a dark Natsu story, joining Fairy Tail, almost fatalist, and has a fucking harem. I have more types of incurable diseases than horrible OC's have dragon slayer magics! Wait, what's that? There's not that many known diseases? Well shit. I can't be beat by the everything omni-slayer.

Keep in mind, darker Natsu stories COULD work; but it would be difficult to actually write it well.

There are a couple key problems you will have to address if you plan to write this story. First and foremost, Acnologia training Natsu. Acnologia is a psychopathic dragon/human that wants to destroy the world. The list of reasons in which he MIGHT take on a student can probably be counted with the brain cells of OCxHarem authors.

Here is a premise that COULD potentially work:

Assuming we are ignoring canon history, we can make it so Acnologia wants to rebuild the world in his image after destroying it. Then, somewhere down the line, he begins to realize the dragon seed is slowly killing him, that explains why he is killing other dragons - to prolong his own life. In his moment of weakness, he finds Natsu after blasting some random village and decides to spare him. The black dragon then sees some of himself in Natsu, resulting him in taking him in. Of course, Acnologia will NOT act like a dad like Igneel. Natsu will be trained as if he was a soldier and taught only to destroy. However, Natsu then leaves his own isolation when Acnologia goes off on a rampage, causing him to find human civilization. Despite destroying things, he meets some random guy or a canon character that makes him questions his own motives. Then, instead of outright destroying, he starts to learn about the world and all it has to offer. Then somewhere along the line he joins Fairy Tail, NOT because he's the embodiment of friendship with all 24 elements of harmony, but because of his moral uncertainty.

Okay I'll be honest, I have no idea where the fuck I'm going with this but just try to keep the plot holes to a minimum.

 **Darker Natsu - Natsu kicked out of Fairy Tail/Team Natsu:** Other than Acnologia the dragon daddy, Natsu getting kicked out of Fairy Tail or team Natsu is another common darker Natsu setup. This story line is actually pretty similar to Lucy getting kicked out of team Natsu for being too weak - the same way Natsu gets kicked out for being too destructive.

First and foremost, I need to say that Natsu will NOT get kicked out of Fairy Tail for doing too much damage. If you think Natsu is destructive what do you think happens when Gildarts is out doing shit? He could walk through a forest and annihilate an entire fucking ecosystem. Gildarts makes the entire fucking town shift just by walking in! Why do you think that happens? He probably destroyed the town multiple times before they built the Gildarts shift. He could fucking punch a neighbouring country into the GREAT FUCKING DEPRESSION.

So no; too much destruction is NOT a viable excuse for a FAMILY oriented guild to kick him out!

 **Fairy Tail: Black Fire Dragon Slayer** by Draco711

The story above is a Natsu gets kicked out of Team Natsu story.

Just like Lucy being kicked out, I will reiterate this: FAIRY TAIL IS A FAMILY ORIENTED GUILD. They will not kick out their own for their faults, but rather encourage each other to improve!

 **Natsu Leaving Fairy Tail himself:** Natsu leaving Fairy Tail BY HIS OWN volition is often times a follower of the Natsu getting kicked out of Team Natsu. What happens is that, when Natsu is kicked out of his own team, he would often leave and go on a training session. Which sometimes happen even if he DOESN'T get kicked out; this is often a precursor to badly written God-like Natsu harem stories.

Now, Natsu leaving Fairy Tail himself to train isn't exactly that much of a plot hole - Natsu did it himself after Tartaros and he didn't even realize that the guild disbanded.

However, Natsu leaving Fairy Tail BECAUSE Team Natsu kicked him out - which is a pretty impossible occurrence in the first place, then that is improbable.

Honestly I would like to see a story where Natsu goes out to train in this setting but doesn't come back as the Mashima God of all Reality. A story could involve Natsu leaving for a year to gain far better magic control which would decrease his destruction. You could make him a little smarter but not to the point where he becomes an OC.

 **Dumb Natsu:** Sometimes, people tend to write Natsu with the intelligence of a genetically modified eggplant. Natsu is impulsive and hard headed sure; HOWEVER, he doesn't' have the disease that is the evolved form of both autism and mental retardation. Some stories tend to portray him as so stupid that Lucy has to give him the 'talk.'

Natsu was mentored by BOTH Gildarts AND Macao. How much are you willing to bet Gildarts was able to NOT give him the 'talk'?

The fact that some stories make Natsu seem so dumb that he is not legally allowed to walk in public is worrying and is a complete and utterly unnecessary form of OOC. I am not sure if this is just authors being stupid or simply because they are trying to bash Natsu.

 **Love Triangle:** Love triangle fics are one of the things riddled with OOC. Authors generally write this because their romance story is going nowhere, where there is no action and tension because the author has no experience in actual romance. That, or the only experience they have is the bullshit they have seen in TV series or high school dramas.

Many authors tends to vilify the characters that tends to stand in their actual pairing's way. Instead of writing an actual tension and drama where the triangle actually has to struggle between their own feelings for each other, you end up with a horrid combination of rubbish. If there are two guys fighting for a girl, the girl will often be able to get away doing things that the other two can't. Then the preferred pairing WILL triumph over the other one and end up with no tension or action.

Any fucking Lucy leaves and bitch Lisanna fic is an example of this.

This is a setting that can be done well!

Seriously though, read a famous romance novel or something.

 **The ascension of the all-slayer Primordial God Romeo:** Thanks to Svane for pointing out this trope to me because I wouldn't even have known this shit existed in the first place.

I didn't even know this trope was a thing despite having one story always be on the updated list - despite me never bothering to read it.

First of all, again, why is this a thing? Who decided that Romeo being God-like and have a harem should be a thing? You know, the 13 year old boy AFTER time skip? That Romeo? Are we talking about the same character here? Obviously not because that is just an OC named Romeo.

 **Romeo Rising: To the Grand Magic Games and Beyond** by Chaosphoenix123

The fact that this is the author first story already speaks loads about the plot line. HOWEVER, the author got a beta and actually has good grammar - respect +1 for that.

Regardless of the mechanics of writing, the setting is one that requires multiple Sue traits, again, to write. Romeo is a little BOY. Acnologia will NOT be sealed inside him like some fucking Jinchuriki; he definitely will NOT get a bloody harem.

 **Conclusion:** As opposed to what I have said before about working plot lines, most if not all of these settings should just be gutted and racked forever. The story lines above use multiple Sue traits, and often times OOC just to make work. Even logical explanations would seem forced and unrealistic. These premises are just so riddled with traps that you might as well call all of them crack fics.

If you are here to learn how to write these specifics, for the most part, don't. If you want to tackle them anyway, WORLD BUILD WORLD BUILD WORLD BUILD. That's a word lost on fanfiction authors no matter how good their grammar. Think of HOW this makes sense, think of HOW you can make such a setting work within the confines of the character. Think of HOW different adventures could potentially change the character's personality or point of view! Canon divergent stories are divergent for a reason, characters don't have to be 100% in character but they shouldn't be some random OC slapped on with the characters name!

Ask yourself all the question I put before and answer them to the best of your ability. If you are stumped at certain questions, get a BETA. If they are stumped as well, chances are, the setting you are going for will have plot holes or Mary Sue traits. It's like building a metal bridge but you decided to tape card board boxes together then laying them in a hole because you can't find another piece of metal.

 **Theme:** Develop your setting and build your premise in the confines of canon! Explain your reasons otherwise!

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 **Chapter 11 Done! Next Chapter: World Building: The Tutorial**

 **Make sure you guys check out my other stories!**

 **Read my profile and join my Trope discussion forums!**

 **[ROTLB: The Birth of the Light Bringer]**

 **[ROTLB: Light of Fairies]**

 **[Chef Ramsay]**

 **[A God's Redemption]**

 **[The Nothing Dragon Slayer's Misadventures in Fairy Tail]**

 **Minipa, out!**


	12. CH12 - World Building: The Tutorial

**Chapter 12 - World Building: The Tutorial**

 **Okay, I have talked about world building in probably every chapter before this one.**

 **Instead of going to part 3 of General advice and shit, I decided to dedicate chapter 12 to world building.**

 **For this, I will be going through the techniques I use myself, and a little template of how I build various aspects of my world and lore in general.**

* * *

 **Introduction:** What exactly is world building? Is it food? Is it an OC's name? If you answered any of the previous, then I am afraid you are wrong. No, it is not a girl for Naruto to crush-blush into a harem.

The basic premise of world building is exactly as its namesake suggests, building your world.

This is the act of constructing your universe, and to create the fine details in your setting. This includes making backstories, maps, abilities, physics, and people!

For those of you that have read my ROTLB story, you might have noticed I posted some of my world building notes at the end. I did not post more simply because it might spoil the story; however, I have a page like that for every aspect of the story that IS important to the plot. This could be: weapons, countries, places, creatures, magics, etc.

So what are some common issues associated with world building? There are two big ones that come to mind.

The first is simply NOT doing enough world building. Not doing enough WB ALWAYS leads to pretty much all the shit I've talked about in the past discussions. You know, the OOC, Sue traits, plot inconsistencies, random dragon slayer crap?

The second is for those of you who have made it past problem 1. Authors who HAVE done the world building often don't check up on their facts, which means there could be conflict with canon or even with their own plot. It is VERY important here to get a beta to check your notes, as you might be a victim to author bias when doing it yourself.

World building is something I'd like to split into these steps: why and where to world build, brainstorming, developing, fact checking, editing, then getting a beta.

Keep in mind that finishing these steps does NOT mean you are done your story. Even if you have the best, grandest idea ever made, if you present it as some sort of OCxHarem Mary Sue, then there goes all your hard work. You need four things for any good story: world building, story building, character building, and finally presentation.

Story building and character building will have their own sections, but presentation is basically outlined in the technicalities and grammar chapters.

 **Why and where to world build:** For those of you that made it this far and actually want to improve on your own stories, here's a skill that you HAVE to master for ANY story. Even in Ice -Dragon-Slayer-Fatalist-Gray's-Sister-What-If OC's, you will need to world build - or not as you probably won't world build if you're writing in that premise anyway.

However, for those of you that ARE planning to world build, then allow good ol' Minipa to be of service.

The first step of world building is to understand WHERE you have to expand on the lore, whether it is on something canon already hinted, adding your own lore in, and god forbid, magics. This could be because of many reasons: fixing canon plot holes, explaining unexplained aspects of the story - ex. I world built my own little flare on god slayers, developing character backstories, countries or cities that may not have been brought up in canon, and DEVELOPING MAGICS - YES YOU HAVE TO EXPLAIN WHY YOUR OC HAS ELEMENTAL DRAGON SLAYER MAGIC, SHOCKING RIGHT?

I'm sure there are more reasons why you would be world building; the ones I listed are simply the main ones.

History

Here is a big one; if you are looking to tie important plot points and/or your main characters into what happened in the past, it is important to world build your history.

A good presentation of connections to the past is by dropping subtle hints in the chapter. Your world building notes should be already completed BEFORE you even start on the arc involving the big reveal. World building as you go leads to unprepared OC arrivals, flashback storytelling, and plot inconsistencies. For those of you that realize that this is a pretty common problem with OC stories, then you understand, that a good part of it is due to the lack of world building.

Ex. My own world building notes of just the general history, the ones used in chapters 7 to 11 in my ROTLB story, is over 5,000 words.

I'm not saying you need 5,000 words of notes for literally EVERYTHING, but you have to write enough to eliminate plot inconsistencies. Make sure you don't add in too much unnecessary information - some extra information is okay as it expands on the world (such as some random mage's name); you have to limit it though.

Here is an excerpt from my own history world building:

 _'Due to the lack of history on Earthland, a creationist history will be adopted for the purpose of the plot._

 _The history will skip most of what happened and will only include key points before the birth of the characters._

 ** _Timeline – 500 Years before Year X0, First Age: The age of Existence_**

 ** _Premises:_** _Before Earthland was created, there only existed a black void filled with primitive energy particles (these particles have no name but will soon evolve into Ethernano)._

 ** _The Primordial Trinity:_** _A trio of near-omnipotent beings that were born from the void that existed before Earthland._

 _Due to being massive beings of energy, they did not have a gender and took the form of translucent silhouettes with galaxy like structures flowing from their bodies. This meant all three had similar androgynous voices._

· _I will refer to all three as he to make referring to them easier._

 _All energy has anti-energy to balance it out._

 _The gods were born from both, where anti energy was used to preserve their existence, and they used energy to build their world._

 _They were born from the consciousness that formed from the bunching of energy particles that occurred naturally. The bunches of magic particles would in turn gather more magical particles and when a certain complexity was reached, the energy took form and gained consciousness. '_

Pretty simple right? That was me explaining how Earthland became…Earthland. I did a whole piece on everything until year x400 as well but that's for later :)

Groups

What do I mean by groups?

Many things can be included here: Rune knights, OC guilds, Teams of Mages, or Fiore's Government.

If you are planning to write a story that expands or changes an already existing group - like the Magic Council, then you have to have your world building notes in place. This is so the behaviour or the Magic Council and all the parties affiliated will reflect that change.

If you are planning to ADD your own OC group, whether it is a guild or even another branch of the Fiore Government - like the Garou Knights, then you HAVE to have all of your notes prepared before getting to the arc that would include that specific group.

Some examples of things you need to expand on in an OC guild are: team dynamics, how jobs are distributed, guild policies, guild theme - ex. Fairy Tail is family oriented, how the guild is viewed in public, and how does the Magic Council sees the guild?

ALL of these questions HAVE to be answered for your OC guild to be written well. If you have comprehensively answered AT LEAST the ones I mentioned, then you can eliminate plot inconsistencies and actually impact the canon with your guild. Not world building enough often leads to a fatalist fic, simply because the author himself does not know what and how to change in canon.

Here is an example of my world building notes on Rune Knights:

 _' **Overview:** The military division of the magic council, numbering over 5,500,000 in personnel spread all over Ishgar - 120,000 resides in Fiore._

 _Personnel includes military operations, military research, police force, military maintenance, and rune knight members._

 _They are the Magic council's main army, where the Magic council members belays orders in which the Grand Hierarch (the highest rank of the Rune knights) follows the Magic Council's will how he/she sees fit._

 _They are responsible for detaining criminals, incapacitating dark guild members, removing threats to the Magic Council, and act as an arbitrator between countries that have rising tensions - but, most of the time, they do not interfere with a country's individual policies._

 _The uniform of the rune knights all follow the same theme, where colour and slight outfit changes will occur as ranking progresses. Their ranks are displayed by an emblem to determine the tiers of ranking._

 _The foot soldiers of the Rune knights wear the outfit seen in the anime and are mainly there as a police force - this includes the custody enforcement divisions. These are usually lead by a paladin (main military strike force). Most mages do not resist arrest as those who do are labeled as dark mages - in which they will be pursued by higher ranked individuals if they are not turned in by guild mages.'_

I actually have a lot more on Rune Knights, but if I reveal too much, that would be spoiling.

Anyways, the Rune Knights DO play an important role in multiple arcs of my own story, so I will need to expand on them in order to write them properly within the confines of my own plot. If you are writing a story that are let's say, focused on a Rune Knight mage, then I suggest you to world build the Rune Knights in detail as well.

Magics

This is probably the LEAST WORLD BUILT ASPECT OUT OF LITERALLY EVERYTHING. When you get a million different dragon slayer magics straight from autism land, then you KNOW there is an issue here. How can someone think of a dragon that can slay AND eat abstract concepts and think to themselves: this is a very rational and well-thought out idea!

I'm sure many of you have seen a gigantic variety of magics, slayer or otherwise.

Here is a little slayer idea that came out of my ass a while ago:

 _He was…the ECONOMY dragon slayer._

 _What is consumed, is currency and he roars massive interest rates and debt!_

 _Dragon Slayer secret art: GREAT DEPRESSION. This particular spell causes no damage to the opponent, but takes away 50% of the revenue for all settlements within a 10km radius._

 _The economy dragon daddy, Accountius, wears a suit at all times and hides inside his dragon slayer to dodge taxes._

I'm sure many of you are thinking, this is the most asinine, ludicrous, absurd, inane, foolish, and absolutely retarded idea you have ever seen. REMEMBER, authors think of ideas like this - they can't see the absurdity because of author bias! They THINK it's the best idea ever, but it isn't. Don't worry, I was like this with many ideas as well, before it got shut down by my beta.

What are some of the questions you should answer when creating a new magic or expanding on one in canon?

Here's a list:

-how can they be learned

-is the magic rare

-who can learn it

-are there any requirements to learning it

-what are the magic's strength and weaknesses

-are there any counters to this magic

-can this particular magic truly be developed in the confines of canon - ex. Economy Dragon Slayer

-are there greater forms of this magic

-what are known users of this magic

There are honestly so many questions you SHOULD ask yourself, because these are the same questions your readers will ask when they see your magic. If they are not answered, then that is a plot inconsistency. Your future arcs that refer back to this point could even cause plot holes.

As an example, I would reveal SOME of my notes on dragon slayer magic:

 ** _'Introduction_**

 _Some of the magics below are canon - some have extra stuff added to it to explain certain things if they are not already explained._

 ** _Dragon Slayer Magic:_** _Magic used in a way that can pierce through the magic-resistance scales of a dragon. A battle between a dragon and dragon slayer of the same element becomes a war of attrition since neither can be harmed by their attacks - becomes a brawl of strength._

 ** _1st Generation:_** _Magic directly taught by dragons, this causes the dragon's magic to imbue itself onto the person learning dragon slaying magic. This enhances the dragon slayer's hearing, smell, and vision (to a lower degree), hardens there body as their skin takes properties of scales. This enhanced senses is sometimes too overwhelming for the human's mind, therefore causing them to have cordial imbalance - resulting in motion sickness. The greater the senses, the higher the degree of sickness._

 ** _2nd Generation:_** _Users of dragon slaying magic that gained the ability to use dragon slaying magic by either through planting a Lacrima or by learning the magic through tomes written by previous slayers. Second generation slayers have less enhanced senses but have higher proportional magical reserves due to a lacrima generating magic._

 ** _3rd Generation:_** _Users of 3rd generation dragon slayer magic are a combination of: learning their magics from dragons and having a lacrima implanted. This allows them instant access to a botched dragon force by enhancing their dragon slaying magic with the magic generated from the lacrima - this allows them to fight longer than a regular dragon force. They can master dragon force the usual way to attain a greater form of Imperfect dragon force - generally more power efficient and have greater potential than 1st or 2nd generation slayers._

 ** _Pet Cats: Due to the 'mission' from Edolas, 1st Generation dragon slayers all have a cat as a pet._**

 _There will be ZERO OC Dragon slayer's in my story._

 ** _1st Generation:_** _Gajeel Redfox, Natsu Dragneel, Wendy Marvell_

 ** _2nd Generation:_** _Laxus Dreyar, Cobra_

 ** _3rd Generation:_** _Sting Eucliffe, Rogue Cheney_

 ** _Dragon Force:_** _Dragon Force is the ultimate form of dragon slayers; however, there are several subcategories that mark different levels of Dragon Force._

 ** _Imperfect Dragon Force:_** _The first stage of the dragon force are the ones shown mainly in canon. This is a simply power boost that grants the dragon slayer properties of a dragon. The more the dragon slayer boosts themselves, the more dragon-like they become._

 _This form can be achieved by eating a mass amount of their element or by pumping dragon slayer magic into every single part of their body simultaneously, this transforms their body but uses a large amount of magic. This requirement of high magic decreases as the user's mastery increases._

 _The maximum power they can gain through imperfect dragon force is by entering a form similar to an human/dragon hybrid with tails and claws.'_

That is just some of the expansion and clarification of information canon had delivered. I would say this is about 1/5 of my notes on dragon slayer magic.

Now, this is just my notes on dragon slaying magic in general, which means there are no specific 'Grass Dragon Slayer' or whatnot. If you plan on making an original magic, make sure you answer all those questions; ideally in a systemized manner.

Creatures

Creatures is something else we should touch on as well.

When adding certain species or 'divine' creatures in the world, these are some of the questions that you have to answer: how are they divine, how did they get there, how did your character interact with one. This is ESPECIALLY important if you plan on adding divine beings - LIKE A FUCKING WOLF THAT SOMEHOW TEACHES SLAYER MAGIC; DOES ITS FUR HAVE MAGIC BOUNCING PROPERTIES? God damned wolf slayers.

Anyways, if you think of something as absurd as a wolf slayer, then you have to answer all the questions in terms of creature building AND magic building.

Here is an example excerpt I did on Balrogs - Yes the LOTR Balrogs:

 ** _'Overview_**

 _Balrogs are the most common of demons, being an elemental demon of both shadow and flame. The gaps between their strength may greatly vary. To demons that can generate only upwards of 200 Magical Pressure by Magic Council Standards to individuals such as Gothmog that could generate more than 2,500 units of magical pressure._

 _Although not the most powerful, Balrogs are a race that are considered 'lesser' demons, which means demons with a lower average power than some other races. However, Gothmog's strength ranks among the Greater demons and is comparable to the weaker Archdemons. Due to their strength, Balrogs are often used as soldiers or 'henchmen' for stronger demons. This made them the bulk foot soldiers in the great war._

 ** _Birth_**

 _Demons were made without elements when they first came to life from Tartarus's will. The Primordial created the Nether and the creatures without any detail and specifics._

 _The demons/dragons and various other creatures gained their elements through continuous exposure in element rich areas. Where elements of fire and darkness became the most prominent, as that is the main compositions of the Nether._

 _Balrogs were one of the first type of demons to be born, their presence dates back to before the Age of civilization._

 _Unlike humans, demons such as Balrogs communicated using primitive language as well as forms of telepathy. They had no text available to them and the sounds they use to communicate can be compared to cavemen._

 ** _Appearance_**

 _A balrog ranges from anywhere between 4 meters tall to over 10 meters tall. Their size is often directly correlated with their magical strength - but this is not always the case._

 _They are covered head to toe in various forms of armour, where the gaps in between are filled with darkness and flame. Their most defining features however, are the curved horns jutting from the helm covering their faces._

 _Most Balrogs wield a blade and whip of fire, as it is the general weaponry used in the great war. Some Balrogs, such as Gothmog - the greatest of the Balrogs, used a black axe and was comparable to archdemons in terms of demonic strength._

 _Balrogs also have powerful leathered wings that can propel them at high speeds. The level of maneuverability varies from Balrog to Balrog as their wings vary in shape and size - some are incapable of flights._

 ** _Powers_**

 _Being lesser demons in terms of race, Balrogs are the lowest in terms of natural strength and demonic ability. Individuals such as Gothmog, were exceptions that had grown impossibly strong by Balrog's standards._

 _Despite their size, Balrogs are exceptionally agile due to most of their mass being forms of gas or is simply incorporeal. Skill vary from Balrog to balrog as many train to fight in the armies of greater demons.'_

This is a pretty generic world building page for one of my creatures. If you plan on making a new form of slayer magic, you should have AT LEAST this much world building done on the slayer creature.

 **Brainstorming:** Now that you have an understanding at which aspects of your story you should world build at a minimum, let us move on to the actual process of doing so.

The excerpts that you saw above was the completed product after going through the world building process. The brainstorming stage is simply putting down ideas in point form, then expanding them with more ideas.

Everyone here has a different form and level of imagination; I can't really speak for them but I can give you some techniques I use myself.

From here on out, I will pick a random topic and then I will expand on it as if I was world building itself - basically me just thinking on the spot.

Topic: **Darkness Magic**

 _'Alright let's see, Darkness Magic. There are many way to expand on that; first, we will first introduce the concept of the magic, then continue on the requirements on how it can be learned._

 _WB: Darkness Magic, although with many subcategories, is essentially the manipulating of darkness in the form of black smoke. As Darkness is a concept of the absence of light, the magic itself forms a physical construct - the smoke, which absorbs nearly 100% of light, making the actual outlines of the smoke difficult to see._

 _Just like light magic, darkness magic in its purest form cannot affect the physical world, even if light magic can cause blindness in great enough quantities._

 _How mages have learned to develop this particular branch of magic is through the manipulation of the magic particles that form the darkness. Since Darkness Magic is a PHYSICAL manifestation, it can be constantly condensed for it to increase in mass, allowing it to be used to affect the physical world._

 _Most if not all Darkness Magic users are, at the very least, capable of basic compression._

 _The learning process of generating darkness with Etherano is the same as other elemental-type magics. By focusing the mind on the element in question, the Etherano inside a mage's body will follow the caster's will, forming it into darkness._

 _After this step, the mage will have to concentrate on expelling the darkness they have produced inside their own bodies. This expulsion causes a change in the surrounding air, causing a black magic circle to appear in response to the flowing magic._

 ** _Subcategories:_** _Advanced users of Darkness Magic that have raised their control have formed multiple forms of darkness magic that could be used to a greater effect._

 _Warp Magic:_ _By focusing the darkness to a clear location inside the caster's mind, the mage can convert his own body into pure darkness, travelling at speeds near the speed of light._

 _Concentration must not be broken while the magic is in effect, otherwise the mage will lose control and regain form in a random location._

 _This magic cannot be used on other people, but masters of this magic can use their far superior mobility to their advantage._

 _Dark-Make Magic:_ _By further compressing the darkness magics, the caster can create pure-black metallic constructs capable of striking as if it were steel._

 _The more compressed the darkness is, the harder it hits. True masters of this magic is capable of generating gravity, and can cast a botched version of the 'black hole' spell used in advanced forms of gravity magic.'_

Okay, so that is how I usually world build different types of magic or groups. This particular WB session didn't really require using google, so the overall time it took me was about ten minutes.

Of course, the details of 'Darkness Magic' is not complete. I have to make its weaknesses, potential risks, difficulty of mastery, known users, known battles against other magics, known spell names, history of development, etc. If some of the things I listed are unnecessary to the plot, then it should be omitted.

For the most part, brainstorming is basically the brief session of inspiration that all of us have sporadically. After the inspiration ends, it is time to develop the ideas and to expand on the what you started. This is where many people stop, as they are unable to persevere past the momentary inspiration.

Ex. People with 20+ 1,000-word incomplete stories.

 **Developing:** After jotting down ideas such as the paragraphs above, it is now time for the developing! Whether it is the beginnings of a world-building page or simply just a large list of scattered notes, we can now start expanding on the ideas!

Developing, or rather, targeted brainstorming, is when you think of the fine details that you could add to the particular aspect you are developing.

Remember the list of things I said I still have to think of? When you think on and ONLY those things, then you have reached the developing stage.

For an example, let's take a look at the weaknesses of Darkness Magic.

 ** _'Weaknesses:_** _Darkness magic, like all dark-type magics, are weak to light magic. This means, in the event of two equal blasts of light and dark meet, the light blast will eventually emerge victorious. Despite being a spume of darkness, due to the fact that it materializes as smoke; wind magic is also capable of countering darkness magic. However, this is not a direct magic as its simply a composition advantage._

 _Dark magic, like all creator-type magics that are incorporeal in nature, requires greater control compared to maker magics of physical elements - such as Ice. This causes darkness magic to be ignored in favour of simpler magics, unless the caster has a natural affinity.'_

Alright, in the two short paragraphs above, I outlined potential magical counters, and difficulties in learning. These are the main aspects of a 'weakness' when it comes to magic. Basically just anything that could detriment the caster, or is simply a counter to the magic itself.

I can't exactly go in any further detail, as the excerpts I have written on Darkness Magic is literally things I come up with on the spot, just like the many examples of storylines and premises in the Fairy Tail Tropes chapter. If it helps, you can think of key points through scattered notes and expand on there.

Ex. - Dark magic is weak to light.

From that little note, you can then expand to what I wrote about Dark Magic vs Light Magic.

 **Fact Checking:** What is Fact-Checking? It's a mysterious and dark place that most people don't know exists. Basically what this is, is finding credible sources, whether on the internet or at a library, to check if something, or someone, is correct!

When it comes to your world building notes, often times, ideas might clash with already set boundaries in canon. The only part I had issues on this was the **History** portion. This is because Fairy Tail's history, despite its loose descriptions, is STILL history. Which means, when I was writing my ROTLB story, I had to get the timing of key events right, otherwise I might screw up character ages or even make things happen years from when it's supposed to.

I won't really be doing an excerpt for this, as fact checking is simply making sure YOUR world building notes match up with what canon has already written.

REMEMBER, not EVERYTHING needs to be in line with canon, this is because some of the changes could actually be due to the premise of your story. If you were to write an Acnologia Dragon Slayer story, you would have to change up the history a bit to make it match!

 **Editing:** What is editing? This is when you proof read your own excerpt to make sure you didn't miss anything important that could end up being a plot hole.

Of course, grammar doesn't matter for shit in your world building notes since nobody will be reading them, unless you post them like I did.

Let's take a look at the beginning of the Darkness Magic notes, and see if we can find any missing parts.

 _…_ Okay, after reading the first part, there wasn't really any necessary information that I missed. However, when it came to the Dark-Make Magic section, I did fail to explain in detail HOW Darkness Magic can bend gravity. I'm sure many of you already have an idea how, but I didn't explain it so this could be considered a plot hole.

Let us make some rectifications!

 _Dark-Make Magic:_ _By further compressing the darkness magics, the caster can create pure-black metallic constructs capable of striking as if it were steel._

 _The more compressed the darkness is, the harder it hits. True masters of this magic is capable of generating gravity, and can cast a botched version of the 'black hole' spell used in advanced forms of gravity magic.'_

 _Through the research of the BMD (Bureau of Magical Development) in the 6th century, it has been observed that when mass is compressed to a certain extent, it begins to exert an outward 'pull' on its surroundings. As the subject is condensed further, the pull has been measured to increase at an exponential rate._

 _It is debateable whether or not this can be done through mastery of certain magics, but many have tried, and many have succeeded._

 _Illyrio Rogum: One of the first known practitioners and pioneers of Darkness Magic, began practicing day and night in his ability to compress Darkness Magic after finding out about the BMD's discovery._

 _He noticed, that when compressed his magic to a certain point, the darkness which were previously smoke, gained a more metallic and solid feel._

 _It was the continuation of his experiments in magical compression that led to the creation of Dark-Make Magic._

 _Soon, he forced the compression further, and soon he realized that, the ball of darkness he created would be able to affect its surroundings through a slight pull. He first noticed this when a leaf changed directions drastically after being blown by a gust.'_

Okay, I kind of got carried away and ended up writing some history about the creation of this magic as well. However, this is what editing means! If I were to write a story where Darkness Magic is the most prominent form of magic AND is actually important to the plot, then the early usages of the magic would actually be necessary.

In the above passage, not only did I explain some of the physics behind the magic, but I also explained how someone managed to apply that specific trait to a spell.

 **Getting a Beta:** I'm sure many of you out there thought: why is there a section on getting a beta, I know how to get a beta! Yes, yes; to many if not all of you, the process of getting a beta is like waking up in the morning. However, you know who has difficulty waking up in the morning? Cancer patients - because you know, they might die.

Anyways, despite the perceived simplicity of getting someone to proofread your work, the actual difficulty comes from discipline - just like how dieting works. It's supposed to be easy not chug down 12 liters of soda and eat 100 chicken nuggets but people do it anyway.

Why should you get a beta? Easy. When you are in your giddy inspired mode, it is easy to think something that would objectively be irrational, work fine as a plot line. Author bias affects ALL of us - myself included. This is why I have a beta to check out my own world building notes as well!

Assuming you have moved past the point where you write stories WITHOUT world building, then I am proud to say you now only need to get a beta and you will be finished about 1/10 of your story!

 **Examples of Common Mistakes and How to Fix Them:** Now that I outlined the various steps to world build your story, it's time to tackle some common mistakes affiliated with the lack of world building!

Elemental Dragon Slayer Magic:

This is a pretty common one that people like to use as a Mary-Sue magic. Instead of giving more virulent critique filled with vulgarity, I will instead, use the world building strategies to make it seem logical!

From what we can understand, EDSM is a Dragon Slayer Magic that allows the user to use the basic elements - earth, fire, water, and air. Although figuring out the physics and history of HOW a dragon could gain four elements is not entirely necessary. Doing so COULD be what sets your story apart from everyone else in the Mary Sue Club.

In regards to the history of the EDSM, I can think of some ways that could work: natural evolution through being in an environment where all four elements are present in near equal quantities, some sort of selective elemental breeding like they did in My Hero Academia with quirks, or even just a simple genetic mutation - don't use this one; it's for lazy authors.

Let's say the Elemental Dragon comes from a line of dragons that migrated from their homeland because of the dragon war, and because of their new home that had the elements present, their children began to absorb the ambient magic. This, after multiple generations, allowed the children to gain more elements. Through continued breeding, a dragon of all four elements was born. Then, this dragon grows up, then learns how to teach a human his magic through the knowledge from his ancestors.

Now that we covered how EDSM can EXIST, we can now get to the limits, counters, strength, and other factors. It might be difficult to power scale something with much more versatility than a single element dragon slayer magic, but here are some ways it can work.

 **Methods of Learning:** EDSM requires much more fine control than its single element counter parts - the human is not a dragon that evolved for hundreds of years just for the multi-elemental power; the OC will have to balance the different types of magics inside them to be able to combine elements. They should NOT be able to do this when they are fucking 12. Having difficult learning requirements for a magic becomes completely pointless if you have a Mary Sue that can do it anyway.

If the OC fails to combine elements, you don't need to make it so it explodes in his face. Possible drawbacks could include: magic wasting, fatigue, unexpected spell combinations, or simply just nothing.

Now that we established that EDSM is a VERY-HARD-to-learn magic, we can now move on to power scaling. As in, how strong is EDSM compared to, let's say, Fire Dragon Slayer Magic. Since the OC has four different types of elements flowing inside him, this would mean that his Fire Dragon Slayer Magic is far less in quantity than the single element mage.

And no, you can't make your OC have the ability to use all four elements at full strength because they ARE NOT the original dragons that evolved to gain four elements. The human was born a human that learned EDSM, which means they WILL have physical limits that should NOT be overcome when they were preteens.

Anyways, despite the EDSM's greater potential, it has a much greater learning curve in both power and control. The EDS will have to be able to balance the different elements in tantum to cast spells, learn how to isolate a certain type of magic to use each element individually, AND train their magical reserves at the same time.

With this type of magic, you are better off using a more strategic fighter instead of a brawler like Natsu.

 **Weaknesses:** While the magic itself does not have any weaknesses, the massive learning curve makes the caster far more vulnerable. This is because of slower cast time, greater mental strain, and potential miscasts. These are some issues that could plague the OC in the early arcs as well.

Of course, being a dragon slayer, the OC will have motion sickness. IF YOU WRITE AN EDSM WITHOUT MOTION SICKNESS, I'LL BE UNDERNEATH YOUR BED.

If your character has trained around the same as Natsu, then the OC should not be near Natsu's level of strength. HOWEVER, if the OC has trained since, let's say, 3 years old, then he could be at or slightly higher than Natsu's strength but is closer to Erza in terms of combat potential.

 **Creatures or Other Slayers**

When it comes to world building creatures, most if not all of you do it to allow the OC to gain a pet or some sort of weird slayer magic. In this particular section, I will be going over potential ideas that could work with Phoenix Slayers, phoenixes, Wolf Slayers, Wolf-like Divine Creatures, Angel Slayers, and Angels.

Although I have never seen a Wolf Slayer, that particular magic has been suggested to me. I thought it was quite absurd for some sort of wolf to warrant an entire branch of magic just to combat it. Personally, Fire Magic is pretty anti-wolf. I wouldn't want to catch on fire either.

Phoenixes and Phoenix Slayer Magic

I've seen this particular magic used around the website. Compared to Wolf Slayer Magic, it makes A LOT more sense. This is because a phoenix's greatest power is its ability to heal, and to reincarnate from its ashes should it ever die.

Phoenix Slayer Magic could attack the phoenix's in such a way that not only it makes damage impossible to heal, but it also bypasses the reincarnation. Any fatal blow dealt by a phoenix slayer will put down the mythical bird for GOOD.

Now that we have the reason as to WHY phoenixes warrant a slayer magic, we can now get to the phoenix slayer specifics.

 **Phoenixes:** In my own universe, I will make it so phoenixes are various species of birds indigenous to Earthland that became so attuned with a certain element that it become part of their bodies. This process takes many generations to fully occur. As the DNA of various phoenixes became semi-incorporeal in nature, this allowed them to regenerate their bodies by using their magic and converting it to their elements. If their bodies are destroyed, the ambient Etherano, still containing their consciousness, will reform into the phoenix.

 **Introduction:** Phoenix slayer magic, like God Slayer and Dragon Slayer Magic, are slayer type magics like give the caster traits of the creature they are slaying. This particular magic was taught by Phoenixes, as per its namesake. The first known usage of Phoenix Slayer Magic was the 5th century, in which an increase of the phoenix population was possible due to the declining numbers of the dragons.

Just like other slayer magics, Phoenix Slayers have a variety of elements to use from; however, fire IS the greatest majority due to the land where they are most numerous in - close to the Nether.

 **Special Abilities:** Like other slayers, simply being a phoenix slayer grants the user far greater regenerative abilities. Since they are using the magics respective of the slayer creatures, they will have traits passed down.

God Slayer = Ability to use Divine Magic, enhanced eye sight, aura vision.

Dragon Slayer = Greater physical attributes in all aspects - most emphasis in durability and resistances, enhanced senses, ability to generate more magic.

Devil Slayer = Possession - can turn other matter into their element and control it.

Phoenix Slayer = Passive near-instant regeneration, can create wings made of their element to achieve flight.

On top of being able to eat their respective elements and be able to damage the creature they learned slayer magic from, they all have the above abilities to various degrees.

 **Power Scaling:** When it comes to power scaling of this particular type of magic, what I want to focus on is how it compares to other slayer magics. If two slayers of the same element, same strength, and same skill, then what would be the result of a direct confrontation?

For that answer, let's take a look at the slayer magics ranked by proportional strength in MY UNIVERSE - this is the rules I have set in my own fanfics due to the ambiguity from lack of detail in canon.

In terms of power, I have God Slayer Dragon Slayer Devil Slayer in proportional strength.

For Phoenix slayers, I have it ranked SLIGHTLY under devil slayer in PS - proportional strength. Why? This is because a phoenix's greatest strength is their regeneration. This makes pure power alone less of a priority, and allows Phoenix Slayers to regenerate over and over again. Even if they were to lose to a dragon slayer multiple times, the phoenix slayer can continuously regenerate and win in a battle of stamina. Of course, if the dragon slayer catches on and goes for a one-shot, then the regeneration will be overwhelmed.

A Phoenix Slayer's regeneration is NOT at the level of a phoenix.

 **Phoenix Form:** The dragon force equivalent for a Phoenix Slayer. By pumping and covering the entire body with Phoenix Slayer Magic, the caster can enter a phoenix-like form in which the user's strength is increased slightly, speed is increased greatly, and maneuverability increases significantly.

The user is also seemingly invulnerable to physical attacks because any and all damage is regenerated instantaneously. The only way to defeat a Phoenix Slayer using this form is to outlast it as regeneration costs magic, or to be another phoenix slayer.

Great Wolves and Wolf Slayer Magic

Instead of just having 'wolf', I'm going to make the creatures that teach Wolf Slayer Magic, the Great Wolf.

Now, when it comes slayer type magics, they are created because a certain species have some sort of natural defense that makes them impervious or greatly resistance to magic. Just like how gods are divine beings, making normal magic practically useless unless in far greater quantities; dragons have magic resistant scales that greatly boost their defences, and phoenixes have their regeneration.

My idea with the Great Wolf's ability is taken from Starrk - Bleach character. A Great Wolf will be significantly larger than regular wolves, where most adults would range from 5-15m. Unlike the other creatures, Great Wolves use typeless wolf magic.

Basically, instead of Fire Wolf Slayer or Ice Wolf Slayer, there is only Wolf Slayer. Personally, any possible explanation in which wolves can gain random elements seems retarded, so I will not be adding it. Besides, it is also good for some variation when it comes to slayer magic.

What is the Great Wolf's ability that warrant a slayer magic? Their ability to divide. Just like Starrk's special move, Great Wolves can split their souls into multiple pieces, like the shadow clone, and ALL pieces will have to be destroyed to kill the wolf. I would say this is similar to Majin Buu's ability. If the Great Wolf is hit with an attack stronger than its defense, it will simply split into many pieces, then the remaining pieces will join back together. The amount of magic each division takes from the wolf is minimal, making conventional tactics ineffective.

 **Introduction:** Wolf Slayer Magic is pretty simple to understand, the attacks are similar to the Ki blasts in Dragon Ball in the way that it doesn't have any elemental modifiers. The magic acts like a physical push to stronger beings, and will burn/disintegrate weaker or weakened beings.

Think of it as a weaker version of Crash Magic that can prevent Wolves from splitting for a set duration after being struck by a spell.

 **Special Ability:** Like the wolves, the Wolf Slayer Magic user can create duplicates of themselves. Each of these copies are made with Wolf Slayer Magic and will explode when their damage limit is reached - similar to Explosive Shadow Clones from Naruto - or Clone Great Explosion.

Again, since the slayers aren't the wolves themselves, they will be unable to use the Majin Buu split and regenerate to that extent.

Wolf slayers also gain a better sense of hearing and smell. Due to their pack mind, wolf slayers will often recognize an alpha if there is a superior individual within a group.

Not only that, but the wolf slayer's typeless elemental allows the caster to attach another type of magic on top of the wolf slayer magic. This allows far greater versatility and could potentially overwhelm other slayer magics in terms of pure power.

Ex. Crash Wolf Slayer Magic.

 **Ultimate Form:** When it comes to the ultimate form of wolves, I feel as if having the exact same shit as the other four will make it redundant.

Instead, I'm going to do something else. As Wolf Slayers can learn another primary magic to bolster the slayer magic, there is no ultimate form that allows the mage to turn into some undying wolf or some shit.

Instead, I decided to go with the werewolf route. In a full moon, the magic inside the wolf slayer will go berserk, granting them great destructive power with the cost of control. Most full-fledged slayers have full control of their mind, but their magic control still decreases. The control issue can be overcome through extensive training.

Angels and Angel Slayer Magic

Personally, I think Angel's are just a subservient species to gods, which makes making a complete separate magic for them redundant - at least in my own universe. However, if in YOUR story, Angels are a separate race, then it can go something like this.

 **Introduction:** Similar to the Great Wolf, the Angels do not have a variety of elements to use. Instead, they are either Light or Dark. Angels will use various forms of light magic, while Fallen Angels will use various forms of Darkness Magic.

The strength of each Angel or Fallen Angels are determined by the number of wings. Archangels, the most powerful, have a total of 12 wings - 6 on each side.

Angels have white wings, while Fallen Angels have pitch black wings.

Angels, like gods, are capable of using divine magic, where the magic inside the Fallen are still divine. Each of the slayer magic are determined by classes. Depending on the teacher of the Angel, ex. Uriel, Michael, Marcus. Depending on the teacher, the angel slayer will have different traits with their magic - ex. More piercing, can heal, ability to tank more attacks, etc.

Angel Slayer Magic taught by Angels are all light elemental, and is made to kill the Fallen Angels - this is the same for the reverse.

 **Special Ability:** Angel slayers don't really have any special abilities apart from a slight boost in physical and mental resistances.

All of the angels are capable of using a spell, called 'Gate of Heaven,' in which they can open a portal from their plane to the mortal realm, effectively being instantaneous travel. Accomplished angel slayers is capable of opening portals from one point to another using the angel plane as a pivot point.

Despite the above abilities, their true power comes from the Angel's sense of community. If an angel slayer is in dire need of aid, other angel slayers will come to the aid of their comrade. Only those that mastered the gate of heaven is capable of coming instantly - this trait causes angel slayers to eventually meet and group together.

 **Forms:** Angel slayers do not have an ultimate form; instead, angel slayers can project wings from their back, where the number is dependent on their amount of magical power. The wings itself provide a great boost in speed and mobility, and have extremely low magic costs.

 **Conclusion:** World building can be very fun! It is important to write down notes for any new ideas you are bringing - especially magics! If you are adding a 'unique' magic to your OC to make them seem cooler, it is important to figure out all the details before writing!

This is the difference between a completely shit story and a somewhat decent story! Seriously, not world building your MC's magic properly is going to lead to various hardships and plot holes somewhere down the line.

Also, if any of you guys have some other subject you want me to world build, leave it in the reviews!

 **Theme:** UNLEASH YOUR IMAGAINATION!

I wanted to say that shit for a while now since its literally the Fanfiction theme.

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 **Chapter 12 Done! Next Chapter - Story Building: The Tutorial**

 **Make sure you guys check out my other stories!**

 **Read my profile and join my Trope discussion forums!**

 **[ROTLB: The Birth of the Light Bringer]**

 **[ROTLB: Light of Fairies]**

 **[Chef Ramsay]**

 **[A God's Redemption]**

 **[The Nothing Dragon Slayer's Misadventures in Fairy Tail]**

 **Minipa, out!**


	13. CH13 - Story Building: The Tutorial

**Chapter 13 - Story Building: The Tutorial**

 **For those of you that have already read chapter 12, I decided to finish the story-building and the character-building chapters first. This is something I need to get out of the way before continuing.**

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 **Introduction:** What exactly is story building? Basically, this is what happens when you outline the events of your plot, arcs, and the premise of your story. If world building is creating the setting, story building builds the plot.

When it comes to story building, there are multiple aspects you have to consider: plot - as to what happens, premises - as to the big picture, conflict(s) - who or what are the obstacles your MC will have to get through, and theme - the message you, as the author, is trying to convey to the audience.

Those are the BASIC story building questions you have to answer before actually getting into writing the beginning, middle and end - this includes the individual arcs too!

Now, since writing fanfiction isn't the same as writing a normal story, we will have to build each arc like it is an entire story. Instead of treating your fanfiction as a single book, you SHOULD treat every single ARC as a book. Each and every arc will have unique characters being introduced, a unique plotline that COULD and probably will have traits and plot points from previous arcs. Of course, despite the number of arcs, each and every one might have a theme, and will have a premise. Your entire story, made of many different arcs, should also have a final goal that the main character is trying to achieve.

If you look at the Harry Potter series, you can see that every book has a particular story line as well as new characters. In the first book, Harry Potter was introduced to Hogwarts and had his first battle with Voldemort. In the second book, he had a dealing with the first horcrux as well as the snake. Then finally, in the 7th book, he defeats Voldemort in a direct battle.

Basically, what I'm getting at is, that despite the individual story of every book or arc, it slowly moves along the base premise towards the final conflict: defeating Voldemort. If you are thinking of writing an Fairy Tail story, you probably want to follow the canon storyline down to the very last detail - especially if you are writing an OC story. For some of you, this can work because you don't really know what to insert and when to insert it; not only that, the actual canon storyline doesn't have a set premise, but it does circle around the dragons before being put into an all-mighty fuckery that is the Alvarez Arc.

 **Base Story**

What is the base story? As I said before, the 'base' of your story, is the plotline that is gradually moving forward towards the final conflict as every arc or book completes.

Even if you are writing a romance fic, a gore fic, or even a yaoi fic, there are usually conflicts and a base premise, however loose, in the plot.

Ex. For an average Fairy Tail story, the final battle is against Acnologia or Zeref. Then, throughout the arcs, mentions or cameos of the beast will gradually show until the final battle appears. Minions of the final 'boss' could be responsible for instigating the plot for arcs, and this is what moves the base plot along.

The base story is not as important in romance fics, or the other fics I listed above, but it is VERY important if you plan on writing a canon divergent AU that still moves forward in the timeline.

 **Conflict:** In a story, conflict is the challenge your MC's need to solve to achieve their goals. It's essentially the literary element of uncertainty as to whether or not the main goal will be achieved.

Ex. Madara might kill Naruto and prevent him from becoming Hokage or bringing peace.

Remember, you can have multiple conflicts in a story. Whether if they are: internal conflicts, man vs nature, man vs society, man vs beast, man vs man, man vs god, man vs robots, etc. A well-developed story will often have multiple conflicts that match the story's plot and premise.

The simplest conflict is simply man vs man. This means that the driving force that is actively trying to detriment your main character is another person; an example of this is the Tower of Heaven Arc. The main antagonist is Jellal, in which he tries to prevent Natsu from rescuing Erza.

When you pick your conflict in a story, you must think of the possible antagonists that will detriment your main character(s). This can either be: an existing character - such as Acnologia or Zeref, or an OC villain - Nemesis for my own story. Remember, it does not matter what antagonist you choose, as long as you follow the basic guidelines of story building, you will not run into issues such as: plot holes, inconsistencies, illogical reasonings, etc.

Despite not a lot of subtle hints or gradual movements, Acnologia was speculated to be the 'final antagonist' when Tenrou was destroyed. That act got many of us asking: how will they defeat such an OP enemy, is there anything above Acnologia, when will we see the battle? In Fairy Tail, the dragons were always referred to as the most powerful beings in Earthland, and what better antagonist then the most powerful who also wants to destroy the world?

Of course, Alvarez did a shitty job of portraying Acnologia's character and didn't even reveal his intentions until the very end of the manga. If you are writing a story, don't pull a Mashima as that is not good story building. Never believe making money is a sign of brilliance. However, if you do want to make money off a story, you have to write it in a way that will please the majority of people with expendable income and will read on a daily basis.

Now that you have picked your conflict - whether if it's one or maybe ten, we can now move on to the foundation of your plot!

 **Premise** : What exactly is a premise? A story's premise is the entire foundation of your story that drives the plot. Basically, this is what your plot circles around! If you write a story focused on internal conflict and self-development, your premise could be: 'insecurity is the absence of self-love,' or something of that nature. Even if there are multiple arcs that feature the development of individual characters, the 'base' premise remains the same.

If you are starting a Fairy Tail story, whether it is an OC story, Alternate Universe, Canon Divergent, or pairing, you start by building the base premise.

Now, let's assume you want to insert an OC into the story - doesn't matter if they are joining Fairy Tail or becoming a dark mage, you should consider writing a premise to have your arcs follow. What are the OC's adventures or the story trying to achieve? Is it something to like: perseverance breeds results, bonds between family are the greatest treasure, etc.

While NOT writing a big premise and simply following canon won't be story breaking, doing so will make that big of a difference.

 **Plot:** A plot is the events of your story that follows the premise. If you don't have a premise, they are a series continuing events that build on top of each other - successfully doing so is called story continuity.

For the base plot, you want a single set storyline that will gradually advance as you go through the individual arcs. Basically, some ultimate enemy or conflict that will eventually end your story when it is defeated/resolved.

Ex. The plot of Naruto was essentially him becoming Hokage at the LOOSEST. You could argue it was the final war against Madara/Obito/Kaguya/Zetsu or whoever and that would be technically right.

Why should you have a final plot?

This is so you can write an adequate ending for your story. If you write a story that is episodic, then you most likely would not have an actual 'ending' to your story.

Once you actually figured out your main plot, chances are, you already know what's going to happen at the end. You know where your character begins, and you know where it will end once the final conflict is resolved. The true challenge is writing the arcs and different obstacles that your character will have to overcome in order to achieve that resolution.

A good plot will continually raise the stakes and build urgency. The action and drama of the story will slowly build its way up every arc.

Ex. The threat of Zeref coming closer and closer as the plot comes to a close.

 **Theme:** A theme of a story is an underlying message, or some sort of 'big idea.'

While a theme is not necessarily required, having a theme will allow you to convey a message to the audience through the story. Basically, something broad your story encompasses. This is usually universal in nature, basically what that means is, when a theme is universal, it touches on the human experience. It is essentially what the story means. This could be things such as not judging a book by the cover, honesty is the best policy, or many more.

So how do we figure out a theme for our story? It comes down to what sort of belief you have on life in general. If you feel strongly about some things - most people do, then, you can reflect those particular views into your story.

 **Arc Story**

What exactly is an Arc story? To put it in simple terms, it is the plot in your arcs. Considering the size of the Fairy Tail plot line, each individual arc will have acts that require the MC to get past obstacles to advance.

Ex. Phantom Lord Arc - Fairy Tail attacking Phantom Lord's guild hall before retreating.

For the arc story, you are doing the same thing as the base story. You will be figuring out the conflict, premise, theme if applicable, and the plotline.

Ex. In the Phantom Lord Arc, the conflict was Makarov vs Jose in broad terms, the plot was Fairy Tail getting vengeance against Levy's Assault, then they had to defend against Phantom's invasion. The premise, in my opinion, would be something like 'bonds of family will overcome the darkest of phantoms.' Seeing it is Fairy Tail, I wouldn't say that's too far from Mashima's intended premise.

 **Common Mistakes**

 **Source Material is TvTropes**

When it comes to story building, there are many common mistakes associated with story building itself or the lack of story building. Any of these mistakes should NOT be done in your story, and if you find out you HAVE done the following in your story, reread it and fix it right away. Rewrite if you have to!

 **Plot Holes:** I'm sure many of you have heard this term, but what exactly are plot holes? They are defined by the gaps in a story where things happen without a logical reason. When a plot hole involves something essential to the story's outcome, it can hurt the believability of such an outcome, and often disappoint the audience.

Ex. Remember when Rose crashed into Finn in 'Star Wars: The Last Jedi?' We all saw Finn charge towards the canon at full speed yet, Rose was able to catch and slam him from the SIDE just to stop him. Then we see him scene skip back to the base, which means he supposedly from the First Order army all the way back to the base without getting shot. Not to mention that incredibly horrible line that ruined the scene.

A plot hole can come in many different forms: character gaining knowledge that was never passed to them, characters not knowing they ARE supposed to know, an event that does not logically follow from what happened before, or an event occurring that simply do not allow certain other events to actually happen - logically that is.

 **Why do Plot Holes Occur:** There are many potential reasons why an author would want to write something that is considered a plot hole. Many of these reasons could just be negligent authors, or even just authors not caring and wanting to write anyway.

The first reason is that the author simply wants to write a certain scene, ex. Certain interactions between characters, even if it makes zero sense. Instead of tossing the scene or writing proper build-up, the author writes it regardless due to laziness and author bias.

The second is that the author has forgotten their own world building notes - some simply just don't have it - or the events that occurred earlier in their story. Then, they unknowingly create a scene that goes completely against something that happened before. This can easily happen with authors writing extremely long stories, such as ones over 200,000 words.

Thirdly, in a fanfic written by multiple authors, there could have been a lack of coordination of agreement between them. This could cause authors to simple reject the writings of another, causing a plot hole.

The fourth reason is that the plot advances without any sort of preparation. These are also called plot triggers. Basically, the plot advances episodically despite not being an episodic-in-nature story. Anime and Light Novels are notorious for having plot triggers - authors being too lazy to write a logical plot starter.

There are more reasons as to why plot holes occur, but we will be sticking with the above four as they are the more common ones.

Plot holes aren't meant to be intentional. Even in stories meant to be unrealistic, each plot point has to build on top of each other, otherwise the story will suffer. Audiences might be able to believe 9-headed dragons or the 5th dimension, but not when and ESPECIALLY when a character teleports from scene to scene with no indication of why and how. Those that do this intentionally are often comedic scenes. Remember, as an author, you can simply say 'fuck it I'm the boss' when writing a story, you can then proceed to ignore every plot hole your audience spots; however, if you do so, your story WILL suffer, even if your audience consists of preteen OCxHarem lovers.

 **How to find and fix Plot Holes:** When finding plot holes, there are various steps you have to take to identify and fix them. Fixing plot holes are similar to fixing grammar, except each mistake takes hundreds of times longer to fix opposed to adding a 's' to a word.

1\. **Knowing your story well:** If you are someone who has done extensive world and story building before writing the story, it can be easy to examine the scene with a supposed plot hole, and refer back to your notes. If the specific scene refers to a detail that you have already written down incorrectly, then you can simply change that detail so it matches the rest of the story.

Of course, if you already have a premade plotline, as in you already know what is going to happen before you actually write that arc, then that alone would have avoided a good majority of plot holes. In fact, many of the stories on fanfiction that end up becoming 100,000 words or longer, has ended up needing a rewrite simply because they did not plan the arcs properly.

DO NOT BE ONE OF THOSE PEOPLE. PLAN YOUR STORY OUT INSTEAD OF REWRITING IT AFTER HALF IS DONE!

2\. **Examining your plot:** This is a step that should happen BEFORE you begin writing. Just like how I send my own arc notes to my beta, so should you. Having 2 pairs of eyes can make it significantly more efficient when it comes to picking out things that don't make sense. This is especially true when one of them is not blinded by author bias.

For those of you that TRULY want to avoid plot holes, you should first start by writing a plot summary. One for your entire base story, and one for your arcs AT THE VERY LEAST, before you start writing said arc.

3\. **Refer to your world building notes:** This is an easy one if you have world building notes. You should keep your notes regarding your magics, abilities, physics, and just basic laws to make sure your story follows it in every chapter.

This means: outlining the behaviours and structures of the Magic Council if you plan on having your MC interacting with them, doing the same with other guilds, and outlining certain creatures as well.

4\. **BETA:** Yes again, the beta reader. For those of you that have read up to this point, the prospect of a Beta probably isn't unfamiliar anymore.

Get a beta that is competent and likes the premise of your story. If you have a beta that doesn't like your story's setting, they might half-ass it or just not reply altogether.

Make sure you listen to them as well! While it is true, opinions may differ when it comes to story lines, you have to see it from a neutral perspective. As in: if my Beta wants to change this, is it because he doesn't like it, or is it because it has a plot hole?

 **Fixing Plot Holes:** Fixing plot holes has no set answer as to how. Just like treating a patient with a disease, each and every type of plot hole will have a different 'treatment.'

If your plot hole is something as simple as getting somebody's eye colour wrong, then you can simply go in and change a few details. However, if your plot hole is actually the lack of detail and build-up surrounding a plot trigger, then you might have to consider rewriting a good majority of an entire arc - why people abandon stories.

If you find a plot hole in an arc that happened FAR before to where you are now, then you WILL have to change multiple scenes, if not arcs themselves, just to keep all the story elements in tune.

Ex. If you are writing the GMG Arc already and made your OC go to Lamia Scale from Fairy Tail just to go back again - assuming this switch doesn't mask sense - then you would have to go back to the first switch and explain it properly. That itself could involve rewriting hundreds of thousands of words worth of story.

 **Deus Ex Machina:** What is the Deux Ex Machina? Essentially, it is a shit fix for the plot. Hollywood Movies are ABSOLUTELY NOTORIOUS for using probably ten every movie. Have you seen Independence Day: Resurgence? That shit is filled with it.

What exactly is a DEM? It is when an unexpected person or event that saves your characters from a hopeless situation.

Ex. Gildarts showing up against Bluenote.

This technique is more of a patch over a plot hole instead of an actual fix. Any of you guys do drywalling/painting? If you throw one of those metal-backed patches on a wall and try to mud over it, you will get the ugliest bump in the world in the middle of your wall. You have to properly put furring strips, an actual block of drywall, drywall tape, then multiple coats of mud, primer, and paint just to smooth it out and blend it in.

Ex. From the Gildarts example, we could have multiple scenes in Gildarts' perspective that could better explain his arrival. Let's say, when he was on the boat, he sensed foreign magic and decide to investigate. Then he senses Cana's magic diminishing quickly and checks it out. Then he goes max out speed mode just to make it barely. Despite having the same scene, his arrival is not as unexpected as we get some exposition in his perspective.

You have to stay clear of this technique as any competent reader can simply think: 'so he just randomly shows up after leaving?', 'the fuck is that wasn't he dead?'.

That is a common one, someone presumed dead all of a sudden comes alive and saves everyone else.

Plot Hole Examples - From TvTropes

1\. Naruto is said to have failed the final exams three times - and the exam he takes at the beginning of the series is actually his 4th - but, he is in the same age group as the others from his class (who are presumably all taking it for the first time). This would mean he was some sort of mega-genius that managed to get to the last year when he was 8, meaning he advanced faster than people such as Sasuke and Neji, but he was labeled as 'dead last.'

Then, if he DID repeat the classes, he would have been in the same class as Neji, Tenten, and Lee in the previous year. Yet, none of them seemed to recognize him when they first met. - **Naruto**

2\. Kakashi was randomly able to use Susanoo after managing to get both of them from Obito - how this is done is also a plot hole - not only that, he was able to use the perfect version of it - yes the same one used by Madara to one shot the 5 Kage's. Just to perform a Susanoo, you would need A SHIT-TON of chakra. Kakashi was never a character with super-high chakra reserves. Not only that, the Susanoo is an Uchiha blood clan specific technique, and Kakashi is NOT an Uchiha. **\- Naruto**

3\. Irene is apparently the creator of Dragon Slayer Magic, yet Acnologia, who can smell Dragon Slayers all over the continent and was trying to kill them, had no interest in her until she actually confronted him directly. The next time they meet, Acnologia suddenly knows that fact despite not knowing her name when they first met. - **Fairy Tail**

4\. A running gag since the beginning of the series was Natsu's Motion sickness. This is later stated to be some sort of ass-pull weakness of dragon slayers, brushing Wendy and Gajeel off not experiencing it earlier as 'not being true Dragon Slayers.' This is acceptable for Wendy as she is a little girl, but with Gajeel, he was a fully-grown man that fought on par with Natsu in the Phantom Lord Arc. Irene then states that dragon slayer suffers from motion sickness from their enhanced senses, and how their bodies are unable to cope. THEN, Acnologia still suffers motion sickness in his dragon form. - **Fairy Tail**

Note: To be honest, the entire dragon slayer mechanics just seems to be asspull out of another asspull and was riddled with plot holes and shit-fixes. This became so bad that you were essentially looking at a millennial's Jeans. There are so many holes you don't even know which parts are actual story anymore.

Here is my own take on the Dragon Slayer motion sickness.

 **Motion Sickness:** Motion Sickness is a condition in which a disagreement exists between visually perceived movement and the vestibular system's sense of movement. What this means is that when you cannot see the movement your body is sensing - ex. Riding in a car, plane, or ship - then the mixed signals will cause the symptoms of motion sickness.

When Natsu is carried by happy, he cannot actually SEE himself moving despite experiencing movement. BY DEFINITION, he should have experienced motion sickness. That in itself, is a major plot hole. Mashima made an illogical decision and simply decided to roll with it despite contradicting his own set of rules. 'Happy is a friend, not transportation' - true, but he is also causing involuntary movement which should have triggered the symptoms of motion sickness.

Now, to the CAUSE of motion sickness. Considering the enhanced senses is the only thing that COULD cause motion sickness in ALL dragon slayers, we will expand on that particular detail.

From what motion sickness actually is, we can probably rule out the sense of smell and taste, as they have nothing to do with motion sickness, which leaves us hearing, touch, and eyesight. If a Dragon Slayer is more sensitive to vibrations, they could be able to sense that particular motion their body is under far more acutely than normal. Not only that, enhanced hearing could change the makeups of their inner year, which could affect their sense of balance.

Of course, there is a phenomenon called psychosomatic Motion Sickness. Basically, if someone with motion sickness associates a certain detail with motion sickness, they could gain the symptoms by simply observing that detail.

Ex. If someone gets motion sickness in ships, they could get motion sickness just by smelling the sea.

This could be the case for Natsu, although I highly doubt it because Mashima probably doesn't know shit.

Now, let's say Gajeel is less vulnerable to motion sickness because of his steel composition. This could lessen vibrations in the air and make him less sensitive to movement. Then, he gains motion sickness because he is so used to Natsu having it, that he began to believe it himself - gaining Psychosomatic Motion Sickness. You know the placebo effect? If you think you're sick, the body makes you sick.

Sting and Rogue could simply be because of the actual imbalance in visual/vestibular sensations. The first occurrence of Sting's motion sickness is during the chariot round, in which wooden chariots moved through the city and the mages have to reach the finish line on top of them.

Now Wendy. If Wendy was a sky dragon slayer, she SHOULD be more sensitive to vibrations right? If she was supposedly more susceptible to motion sickness, she could easily have a passive 'Troira' spell that prevents it. Then, she gained motion sickness in the later arcs because her body has become desensitised to the spell. She even mentions overusing the spell will do so. Perhaps she simply overwhelmed herself.

 **Meandering:** Meandering is a problem I see in many stories. What a meandering story is one that loses sight on its main goal.

Ex. Too many side plots and no advancements on the base plot.

It's basically a story where the plot has forgotten where it's going, or is confused on what is exactly the ultimate objective. Instead of stopping to try and figure things out, it essentially just keeps building on top of each other, and with each additional plot point, the main purpose will become more and more vague.

This could also be because the author doesn't know how to actually get from the beginning to the end, so they end up adding too many unnecessary side arcs that don't really build towards the end plot.

Sometimes, meandering is quite prevalent in TV shows or anime as some arcs are stretched our longer than they should have. A great example of this is One Piece's Dressrosa Arc. The hundreds of minutes spent in still frames and characters running was essentially because the animation company decided to keep episodes going every week despite already catching up with the manga. While One Piece is not exactly meandering as it still has its final goal in sight, it simply spends too much unnecessary time dragging out certain scenes.

In short terms, a meandering story is one that has lost its way to the ending and is aimlessly drifting back and forth looking for the plot threads that will guide it to the end.

Now, why is meandering so bad? This is because it throws off the pacing, destroys the narrative arc, and then the constant rise and fall of tension simply goes on a drunken car ride because the tension has dropped to an unending hull. Then, the impact that actually comes after will be thoroughly lessened.

 **How to prevent Meandering:** Now that you know what meandering is and why it's bad, we can now move on to preventing it DURING your writing process.

When you are analyzing your own arcs, you have to ask yourself: is this story contributing to the plot, development of characters, exposition, or anything related to the story? Even a lighthearted lunch scene could be used to build the relationship of certain characters.

More importantly, you have to ask yourself: is your story moving towards the end goal with what you are trying to achieve? Remember, if a chapter is not moving towards the end goal, but is providing elements to the story that WILL, then it is not considered meandering - this is simply setting up or plot launching.

 **How to Fix a Meandering Story:** Fixing a meandering story is just like fixing any other already-completed story; it is a long and tedious road, but will be surely worth it once it is done.

You will have to reread your entire story, then cut out or rewrite all the meandering elements. This way, everything that isn't following the core plot will be after.

You will have to fully outline your plot if you haven't already, outline all the subplots in the arcs, then reread every chapter while taking notes to make sure they are gradually moving towards the end goal.

THIS IS A FUCK-FUCK-FUCKTON of work. For those of you that finished writing 100+ chapter stories, it will probably take months just to rewrite it.

 **Common Fairy Tail Plot Lines**

For the next portion, I will be giving some potential plot lines for Fairy Tail tropes. Instead of the random garbage that shows up, perhaps I can deliver some logic into this particular dark place.

 **Lucy Leaving Fairy Tail:** As I have mentioned before, the reasons that authors usually use to make Lucy leave Fairy Tail is nonsensical. The canon cast will never say Lucy is weak, and will certainly not kick her off the team. Even then, I highly doubt that alone will cause Lucy to just leave Fairy Tail right then and there.

For a premise that could actually work, we could start with an introduction chapter in which Lucy has to be saved by her team mates because she doesn't have anywhere near the same amount of combat potential compared to Natsu, Gray, and Erza. It is because of this, that she realized that she needs more physical strength, and ends up leaving herself. Her team would probably comfort her and tell her she's not weak; Lucy might still want to get stronger so she wouldn't feel like she was a burden.

This would be more of a self-confidence issue than leaving the guild and joining Sabertooth like some grudge-holding 13-year-old out of spite.

Assuming Lucy doesn't ask her spirits or her team mates to help her train - which would be the logical thing to do -, then we can say she decides to leave for a training trip - just like Natsu after Tartaros.

During this trip, she goes through many struggles with her self-confidence, including many battles where she is closed to giving up. She might begin to doubt herself and begin to think that she should not have gone out alone. Eventually, because of her hardships, she becomes naturally stronger with her own magic, and could end up learning star magic (such as Leo's regulus magic), or even gain weapons similar to the Stardress earlier.

 **Dragon Queen Lucy:** This is a fun one; for those of you that don't know what Dragon Queen Lucy is, it usually has the foundation of Layla, Lucy's mother, being the original Dragon Queen. Then, Lucy, once Layla dies, will have to train in the ways of the dragons. Some authors also delay the reveal until Lucy leaves Fairy Tail - another setting.

However, for this particular portion, I will be doing HOW Dragon Queen Lucy is possible - this would be more world building but I decided to put it here as it tends to be connected to 'Lucy Leaves Fairy Tail' stories.

Now, for us to actual imagine a logical setting in which Lucy can be the Dragon Queen, we will have to world build to the very beginning of history.

Let's say, when Earthland was first formed, there was some sort of primordial god that took the form of a dragon. The dragon then created Earthland, in which it spent all of his power. Of course, the most powerful beings, were the dragons - creatures made in its image. Due to the circumstances of their creation, the primordial gave one particular dragon his final piece of power - the power over matter. Of course, the created dragon had nowhere near the same amount of raw strength compared to the primordial.

Then, through many generations, the dragon's descendants became known as dragon royalty, for their inherited ability to control all elements - a mutated form of the original ability to warp matter.

After that, the dragon war came not because of the humans yet, but because of political disagreements within the dragon's hierarchy, which resulted in the slaughter of all but one member of the royal family. Then, this particular member used their magic to hide in human form - hiding away their power so the other dragons can't sense them. The descendants will eventually become known as the Heartfilia family.

Then the victorious dragons began hunting humans in celebration, eventually ruling over Earthland. Then Acnologia basically comes and fucks everyone up and will return eventually to destroy the world.

Through hundreds of years of descendants, the power to manipulate all the elements became dormant, unable to awaken naturally.

When Lucy is born, surviving dragons spent years to find the descendent of the royal dragons. Eventually, after Layla's death, they find Lucy. Of course, they find her not because of dumb shit, but because the dragons realized they will need the power of the original dragon royalty to defeat Acnologia - the same power that could control all matter. The dragons then sacrifice some of their essence to awaken that dormant power. Then they train Lucy to control her powers, so she can eventually take down Acnologia.

 **Natsu, son of Acnologia:** Okay, first off, since we know that Natsu's last name is ACTUALLY his last name and has nothing to do with Igneel, we can spare ourselves the horrible names like Natsu Soulbringer or Natsu Edgelord.

Now, like Dragon Queen Lucy, we will have to change some of the canon history to actually make it work. In canon, Acnologia wanted to destroy the world, which means he wouldn't exactly train a dragon slayer for that purpose. He wouldn't want to train someone for the sake of it unless he plans to continue after his destruction.

For the purpose of this, we will make Acnologia want to rebuild the world as he imagined it after he reduced the current one to ashes. However, after his rampage 400 years ago, he realized that the dragon seed was slowly killing him - so he spends the rest of his days trying to kill anything draconic, so he could extend his own life.

After hundreds of years, he realizes he was dwindling the dragon population down, and he would eventually die. In his own distress, he finds Natsu alone, after Igneel has went into his body. Acnologia, sensing his draconic power, tries to kill him. However, realizing that even if he killed the child, he would die before he could achieve his goals. Because of this, he decided to take Natsu as his student, training him to be his student in destruction while using Natsu's innocence to make him go with what he says. Soon, Acnologia realizes that his life is coming to an end, so he goes on a final rampage, destroying many countries within a single day.

After Acnologia's death, Natsu, with both Igneel's and Acnologia's teachings, leaves himself, eventually wondering into human civilization. Despite leaning more towards Acnologia's teaching as they were more recent and he spent more time with the black dragon, Natsu still has some of Igneel within him. He eventually learns of what the outside world is like, despite the mission to destroy still ingrained with him, causing him to have extremely destructive tendencies, he begins to doubt himself and begins a struggle with the teachings of both dragons.

Eventually in his travels, he stumbles across Fairy Tail and joins in a moment of weakness. He is NOT some sort of Jerk Sue nor is he a saint. He is brutal in combat, initially cold-hearted, and lashes out at people who wrong him with violence.

 **Harem:** Harems are the epitome of self-fulfillment. Despite my own hatred for them, I will attempt to teach little kids on how to make stories in this setting logical and believable.

If you are looking to write a harem story, you first have to look at which relationships are believable. Two girls, I can understand, but three, four, five? For every single girl you add, their depth you have for their individual characters decrease, and it eventually becomes shallow garbage and smut.

In Fairy Tail, what pairings may work under certain circumstances?

Normally, harems would not work unless the girls in the harem actually have a good relationship with each other.

Ex. Lucy and Lisanna could end up sharing Natsu in EXTREME circumstances.

Let's say, Lucy and Lisanna both like Natsu, and they don't want to ruin their own friendships with one another, nor do they want to forsake their own happiness. There could be a few moments where they TRY to be a good friend but they realize they can't do it.

This could potentially end up as a believable harem as the two actually work out on 'sharing' Natsu.

Another possible harem would be Jellal, Ultear, and Erza. During the 7 year time skip, we learned that Jellal has been a team with Ultear and Meredy. Since all they had was each other, it is more than possible for Ultear to develop feelings for Jellal. They have this 'can't have people fall in love with them because they have to atone shit,' but that doesn't mean it stops one or the other from falling in love with each other.

When Erza comes back, this could awaken past feelings that Jellal hasn't really worked past. Ultear might still be in that atonement zone and what would likely happen is no one gets together with anyone because they all have self-destructive personalities. Of course, the harem could be how the three work past it.

This setting is less believable than Natsu x Lucy x Lisanna, but is one I can actually accept.

 **Conclusion:** While many of us don't want to spend the time and effort to build a story, especially since many of the stories we write is for the fleeting inspiration of self-fulfillment. However, for those of you truly invested in your story, take the time to look at every detail that you wrote, and find out if it truly IS what you wish for it to be.

I've seen summaries say 'Story abandoned because plot is going nowhere,' or something similar. Don't let that happen to you! If you genuinely want to write a good story, WORLD BUILD, STORY BUILD, CHARCTER BUILD, and PLAN EVERYTHING. If you made a mistake, reread and fix it! Making errors is all part of the learning process, skipping over them will do no one any good, ESPECIALLY yourself.

 **Theme:** Preparation is Key!

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 **Chapter 13 Done! Next Chapter - Character Building: The Tutorial**

 **Make sure you guys check out my other stories!**

 **Read my profile and join my Trope discussion forums!**

 **[ROTLB: The Birth of the Light Bringer]**

 **[ROTLB: Light of Fairies]**

 **[Chef Ramsay]**

 **[A God's Redemption]**

 **[The Nothing Dragon Slayer's Misadventures in Fairy Tail]**

 **Minipa, out!**


	14. CH14 - Character Building: The Tutorial

**Chapter 14 - Character Building: The Tutorial**

 **CHARACTER BUILDING!**

 **How to not make a fucking Mary Sue OC with Elemental Slayer magic coming out of their ass!**

 **Hopefully all of you read the building tutorials and can finally write a story that doesn't have its head up its ass.**

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 **Introduction:** Character building, in short, is the process of creating your character(s) for the story. While most of the work is due to making OC's, character building can also be done to canon characters if certain events call for OOC.

Ex. A difference in backstory can easily change character traits of Erza.

There are many different steps on character building; I will go through each and everyone of these with you.

 **Name:** Remember the Mary Sue traits? Giving your character an extremely unorthodox and meaningful name is something that you should never do. If you plan on making your character a crystal mage, don't name them Krystal Sapphire or something of that nature. If you think something along the lines of: 'Omg this name would SOO fit this character!' Chances are, you probably would end up writing a Mary Sue.

However, we DO need to pick a name that will not only suit the character, but also stick in the reader's mind. If your character is considered a strong mage, don't name them Xanthrax Ajimaticus or something completely absurd that has nothing to do with the character. A good name for a mage is Lyonel, in my opinion.

Ex. Lyonel Richards

Although it is a pretty simple name, Lyonel Richards gives off a manly, noble, and warrior-like feel in my own eyes. You could pick your names based on association; a kind girl could be named Emily Laretta, while a mean girl could be named Brittany Ivanoka.

Some of you might want to end up avoiding meaningful names altogether and decide to pick something generic, like John Smith. Actively doing the opposite of what is considered a Mary Sue is simply being an Anti-Sue. You want to find balance somewhere in the middle, that way your character is relatable and believable.

Remember, Anti-sues aren't relatable and Mary Sues aren't believable NOR relatable.

 **Age:** Now, how old is going to be your OC? This depends on what crowd you want them to mingle with. If you want your OC to be on Team Natsu - I recommend against this as it has been done to hell, and is filled with fatalist-dialogue-spell-adding OC's. You can have him hang with Laxus, or even Gildarts.

Of course, their age will reflect their strength as well. If the OC is 25 by canon, chances are, they will be more comparable to Laxus as opposed to Gray and Natsu. If their age is 40, they might even be able to compete with Gildarts.

The one thing you DON'T want to do, is make a 16-year-old dragon slayer able to beat up Laxus because of horrible world building and power scaling. That is NOT going to do your story any justice and should just be avoided altogether.

For those of you that are making your character age different from your own, make sure you write that particular age correctly! This is an increasingly common problem I see when writing the child stages of OC's; since the writer themselves is older than the OC, they end up making the character wise-beyond-their-years. I don't blame them though, not a lot of people can remember their own thought processes five years ago without preparation.

You don't necessarily have to make a 12-year-old kid completely retarded either; remember, balance and relatability!

For Lyonel, the feeling I get from this particular character idea, is that he would be slightly older than the canon cast. I will put him at the age of 24 at X784, where his strength is comparable to Laxus.

 **Height and Weight:** Here comes a big Mary Sue indicator. When it comes to appearance, what people tend to do is either make someone so beautiful they can crush-blush anyone into a harem, or simply make them some 5'3 below average skinny manlet that has some sort of speech impediment.

It's important to balance out the physical traits of your character, and make sure they make SENSE. For example, if your OC has been training to be a mage since a young age, chances are, they will have a good musculature. If we look at Natsu, Gray, or basically any of the male mages, most if not all of them are quite muscled. A logical reason as to why that is, would be because they fight and train on a regular basis. I also doubt there is as much junk food in the Fairy Tail universe compared to our own.

Now you understand that your OC probably WON'T be fat nor skinny, we can begin to determine their height and weight. Let's take a look at the Lyonel Richards example. Someone who has that name probably would be a larger man. We don't want to make him absolutely humongous, but we do want to put him taller than average.

For height, let's go with 190cm and for weight, let us go with 95kg. With that height and weight, we can probably imagine Lyonel would be quite stifled. He would have a lower fat content as well due to the fact he trains and spars daily.

Oh yeah, for those of you in America, 190cm and 95kg translates to 6'2.3 and 209.4lb.

 **Eyes and Hair:** Now we have an idea of Lyonel's basic structure, let's move on to the traits that every Mary-Sue-OC lover get hard over. Yes, that's right: eyes and hair.

When it comes to hair colour and design, I'm leaning more towards a brunette for Lyonel. I'm imagining him to be blonde in my head and it simply isn't working. Not only that, we don't want him to make him blonde because he might end up becoming a copy of Laxus.

With that brunette hair, what style would it be in? Would it be a buzzcut, long hair, spiky hair, or even bald? Just from his character, I imagine him being a gruffer, biker-like character, which means I will make him bald with a medium-lengthed beard.

Now we have hair colour and style, let us move onto the eyes. Considering he is a brunette, and the fact that his eye colour is completely irrelevant to the story - at least in my case - I will be making him brown eyed.

To recap, we have a 24-year-old mage standing at 190cm and weighing 95kg. He has a brown beard with no hair on his head, and he has eyes matching the would-be colour of his non-existent hair.

 **Defining Characteristics:** Other than the basic appearance, we will now determine if the OC has any defining traits or characteristics. This would mean: scars, birthmarks, deformities, tattoos, or basically just anything that would stand out from the norm.

Considering the OC I am currently building is a gruff biker-like man, tattoos on his arms and scars on his body would fit his appearance. It is likely that mages gain scars from previous battles as well, especially considering he will be an S-class mage.

Instead of a scar on his face, I believe a large scar going from his hips to his chest would be a trait containing an interesting story - as to how he got it. He could have the Fairy Tail logo tattooed on one arm, and then something representing an idea of sentimental value on his other.

Let's say, a universal symbol of peace with a sword through it. That seems pretty deep and edgy at the same time.

 **Clothing:** Another one of the Sue favourites, we will now describe the OC's main attire. It is understandable that characters may have multiple different sets of clothing, but we will figure out their MAIN getup. Ex. Erza's Heart Cruz armor, Mirajane's red dress, Natsu's scarf and his tank-top thing that is open at the chest.

Regardless of what the OC wears, the last thing you want to do is add a bunch of irrelevant details that nobody cares about. AND ESPECIALLY DON'T USE PURPLE PROSE TO DESCRIBE IT.

For some people, clothing isn't that important, Ex. I just grab whatever shirt from my closest and wear that. However, if we look at Lyonel's character, I can already imagine a few getups that would fit.

For example, leather pants and jacket with a white tank top underneath would be a pretty simple yet realistic outfit someone like him would wear.

 **Race or Nationality:** Although not that important, we want to determine what sort of skin colour he has. Is he tan, white, asian, brown, black, or even a completely separate species and end up being green - like Piccolo.

For the most part, most if not all the Fairy Tail mages would fit as European descent. Laxus would obviously be Slavic, while the other could be British, Germans, etc. Remember, these ethnicities don't actually exist in Fairy Tail, we are simply using them as comparisons as to how the characters would look like in real life.

For my own OC, Lyonel, I would imagine him being a tanned American - in Texas specifically.

 **Backstory:** Here is a VERY important one. The different in backstory could change your character's living habits, personality, fears, hates, likes, dislikes, almost everything! How a person is raised and the environment they grew up in are probably the greatest factors in determining how they will be like later in life.

Ex. An orphan could have a profound resentment against society, while a sheltered Noble could think the world is theirs for the taking.

Family: For the first part, we will first find out if the OC has any family, blood relatives, or just someone they are close to before the canon story.

Ex. Natsu has Igneel before anyone else, and Erza has her slave friends.

For Lyonel, I can imagine him having a little brother, one he cared for and raised from growing up in a harsh environment - ex. The slums of a poorer country. The parents could either be dead or simply absent.

Ex. Parents could have been killed in an accident or abandoned them early because they did not have enough money to take care of themselves.

In this story, I will make the age difference between Lyonel and his brother (I'll call him Marian) to be 4 years.

I will be going with the latter for Lyonel - in which the parents abandon them - and he grows up with his little brother in another country, fending for himself/themselves.

Place of Birth: The place of birth is very important for a character's backstory. Like I said, the environment in which the character grows up in will affect their personality in potentially adverse ways.

Many OC's authors don't actually put a lot of thought into their character's backstories. Usually it's the village-destroyed-parents-dead-found-by-dragon cliché.

However, for Lyonel, we will be going with being born in a poorer region of a city in Bosco. Why Bosco? Bora has mentioned that there is a slave market in Bosco, which means the country is probably quite lawless compared to Fiore. Meaning: more gangs, Maphia, crime, and basically just not a nice place to live in.

Since Lyonel grew up in the slums, he would have to learn to toughen up quick and would most likely resort to less honourable actions just to survive, ex. Stealing, fighting, committing crimes, dealing with gangs, etc. Of course, we can understand Lyonel does not actually like doing this, but he has to take care of his brother until he is old enough to fight for himself.

Growing Process: As your OC grows from childhood to adolescence, how were they taught? Were they taught by a dragon, learned themselves, went to some magic academy, or had parents that schooled them?

Ex. Natsu by Igneel and Lucy by tutors.

Considering Lyonel grew up without parents and had to live in the slums. We can determine that most of his knowledge was learned through trial and error. He might have learned from gangs by performing acts of thievery for them in exchange for food and other resources. He could have found a mentor to teach him magic and ways to survive, or he could have simply found out on his own and was forced to persist in the magical arts to get ahead in such a harsh life.

For this character, I will be going with the latter, him learning explosion magic (something common in Bosco), to defeat potential aggressors in fights.

Motivation: As the two brothers grew into their teenage years, they became more and more competent when it comes to surviving in the slums. At this point, Lyonel would have began to establish his own world views when it comes to society and life in general in Bosco.

He might have thoughts such as 'this is how the world is' or even 'the world doesn't have to be like this.' Considering their situations, Lyonel is would most likely have a more cynical outlook on life as this point, and his brother, Marian, would be more idealistic as he always had someone to look after him.

As the two brothers continued to gain magical strength, they will come to be noticed by the more powerful figures in the region, ex. Crime bosses and warlords.

A good prologue arc could be how they tried to incite a revolution to change the whole country, only to lose spectacularly and were forced to escape with their lives.

Marian could die here as a plot point - this is not required however.

After this, the motivation could be 'to go back to Bosco and fix the injustices in their country.' Of course, the fact that they are now fugitives could be how they (or just Lyonel) end up in Fairy Tail.

 **Personality:** This is something that will make or break your story when it comes to an OC. Many people don't understand how character development or vulnerable moments work, and end up doing a shit job as their character become a Mary Sue. Those who try to avoid this tend to make an Anti-sue or Jerk-sue simply because they don't want the generic Mary Sue character.

Anyways, when it comes to personality, I'd like to think I have already established a good base for Lyonel's character. Due to his backstory, he would be cynical, cold, to the point, and will not show strong emotions except for his little brother. Not only that, since he took care of his brother (let's assume he survived), he will have a natural tendency to aid those struggling to accomplish certain tasks. However, because of how he grew up, he would often teach others in harsh ways. Lyonel would definitely be a character that shows affection through tough love.

Ex. If he was teaching Natsu to fight, he would beat him down, then tell him to stand up because life will always hit hard, and that you must stand up over and over again until you win.

 **Likes and Dislikes:** What a character likes and dislikes will be a great way to show their personality. Let's assume every fucking character doesn't like it when you hurt their friends or family - just get that out of the way. Now, what are the unique traits of that character?

Ex. Erza likes strawberry cake and wearing her armor because she feels safer.

Your OC could like dragons because they were raised by one, or they dislike bigots because they were abused or mistreated simply because the OC had a weird hair colour.

So what exactly would Lyonel like and dislike?

Let's assume that particular list of things would be right after escaping Bosco.

 **Likes:** Marian, being in control, peace, meat, coffee, freedom, Bosco.

 **Dislikes:** Crime, gangs, warlords, chaos, uncertainty, Bosco (situational), rotten bread, war, slavery, oppression.

The character biography will be on Gildarts Clive as I plan on writing him in depth in later arcs, I omitted some details because they were specific to my own story and would actually spoil the arcs.

 **Name:** Gildarts Clive

 **Family Relations** : Father of Cana Alberona, Husband of Cornelia Alberona

 **Character Description:** Laid back person who loves training his magic as well as teaching the new generation of mages magic.

Does not pay attention to his surroundings and tends to destroy buildings by accident.

Gildarts states he is rather bad at holding back, despite his mastery of his magic, he has so much raw power that any usage of his power can end in devastating destruction.

When he gets drunk, his control slips even further and ends up destroying landmarks and mountains unintentionally.

Does not like responsibility, being held down, and paper work - immediately passed 5th guild master position to Makarov in canon.

Gildarts is very muscular and is 205cm tall.

 **Motivation:** Despite not being a battle nut, training his magic is something of a passion and hobby. He has the utmost faith in the newest generation of mages and strives to improve them.

 **Likes:** Helping others, teaching others, Fairy Tail, Cana, Cornelia, DRINKING, partying, training magic.

 **Dislikes:** Those who threaten the safety of his guild and his guild mates, those who badmouth his guild, responsibility, office work.

This is what I do for all the characters I plan on writing in depth, it is very helpful to keep characters IN character if you yourself know how they would think and react in certain situation. Keep referring to your own notes until you know it by heart!

Now we have a have basic outline for Lyonel, I will be using the same character biography template to illustrate his own traits - I will add a few details as well.

 **Name:** Lyonel Richards

 **Family Relations** : Older Broth of Marian Richards

 **Character Description:** Grew up in the slums of Bosco, this made him cynical, cold, straight-to-the-point, tough, aggressive, and only shows the true depths of his emotion to his brother.

Lyonel had brown eyes and shaggy hair by the time he and his brother escaped Bosco. However, he later decided to shave his hair in favour of growing a beard.

He has a large scar on his chest due to one of the battles he had with the warlords during the conflict he and his brother incited.

He has tanned skin and a hardened exterior, a strong jaw, a broad frame, and he rarely smiles except to his brother.

 **Motivation:** Due to the circumstances of his growth, Lyonel wishes to change Bosco for the better. After being persuaded by his brother that the world doesn't have to remain a certain way, he began actively fighting for things he believes are right. Despite losing a decisive battle and had the majority of his supporters killed, he was able to escape with his life to Fiore, in which he intends to become stronger to once again go back to Bosco.

 **Likes:** Marian, being in control, peace, meat, coffee, freedom, Bosco.

 **Dislikes:** Crime, gangs, warlords, chaos, uncertainty, Bosco (situational), rotten bread, war, slavery, oppression.

This is just the basic structure. I usually have his magics, fighting style, mock interactions with other characters, and spell names listed underneath this part. However, this is the minimum of what you SHOULD put down that way you can refer back your notes to keep your character in character.

 **Character Development and Conflict:** This particular aspect is just as important as building your character's base. If you have a static character that never changes, then there really isn't a story! Just like how romance changes a character, so will all the events that they go through in the course of the story!

What exactly is character development? By definition, it is the change in characterization of a Dynamic Character over the course of a narrative. At its core, it will show the character changing. Traits they had at the beginning could become completely opposite ones.

The different between good and bad development is simply whether or not it seems forced. A character that changes from bad to good within a single speech would be considered bad character development. The same character taking multiple interactions and experiences to actually change could be considered good character development - simply because it was more gradual and prepared.

Coming-of-age stories all have similar character developments - in which the MC 'grows up.'

How do we develop a character? Remember, characters, just like people, won't really change unless there is a factor that forces a realization.

Ex. Someone could start working out because they realized they were getting too fat after failing to walk up the stairs.

Ex 2. A person that abused many others could realize their own mistakes after being abused themselves for the first time.

This is where we get into internal conflicts within the character, as well as the character's own failures, and how they learn from it. Internal conflicts ARE related to external conflicts, as it is often external factors in a story that might cause a character to change - being beat up by charging in and then realizing that they have to strategize in battles, which also in turns makes them less stubborn and mature.

Ex. A conflict for Lyonel would be between his desire to go back to Bosco and his desire to simply reside in Fiore, where there is peace. Although nobody is really expecting him to, he could take it as a self-given duty to save his place of birth, despite no longer being affected by it.

In a Shonen anime, Lyonel would probably go back and save Bosco with some bullshit asspulls, but realistically, the development could be Lyonel realizing that there is nothing he could do about the situation of the country. He is no longer in that place and he should try his hardest to build his own life in a different country. In reality, he owes nothing to Bosco. The desire to go back is self-given responsibility that will probably lead him down a self-destructive path.

This is actually how many people suffer, they think going to University despite asking themselves why they are there in the first place; then realizing they never actually want to do it. Then they kill themselves because they go down a spiral of self-destruction, feeling trapped due to the self-given responsibility exaggerated from their parents' desires.

Anyway, to understand how to develop your characters, you can take examples from people you know, as well as yourself. I'm sure all of you had made mistakes in your life; through that, you most likely changed how you would tackle the same problem, or simply change, however slightly, how you live your life.

Let's say, getting bullied over and over until you snap, then deciding to fight back; this causes a change in self-confidence and causes the person to realize that problems won't go away by themselves.

 **Common Mistakes when Writing Characters**

Remember the Sue traits? This is where the mistakes of character building come in play. When they go through the process of creating the appearance, personality, backstory, and motivations, first-time authors often do a lackluster job, and end up with a Mary Sue. Not only that, second-time authors that get criticized of having a Mary Sue the first time, end up having a Victim/Jerk Sue because they are now actively trying to get rid of the Sue traits.

Age: While age itself is not THAT big of a problem, it CAN be a factor of relatability and believability especially if their age does not reflect the power scaling. Someone who is as strong as Erza should be similar or equal in age as making your character a one-in-a-million child prodigy is Mary Sue.

Don't make a character than can kick Natsu's ass and make him young enough to be paired with Wendy. You don't need to make a Macao character either and make someone far too weak for their age when compared to the canon cast. BALANCE!

Appearance: You shouldn't make your character drop dead beautiful NOR the most repulsive ordering of chromosomes in scientific history. Eye and hair colour should not be absurd or completely out of the ordinary without a logical explanation. 'I do this because I want to,' is the worst explanation you could possible have. Giving someone Yugi Moto level hair while adding a touch of LGBTQ colours is not a great way to begin the character building process.

If we look at Lyonel's appearance, he would not necessarily be beautiful, and may actually be ugly by some standards. Considering he is bald, bearded, rough looking, and quite intimidating, he would look more like a criminal than a guild mage. However, that particular appearance fits his character, and gives him a personality that fits as well.

Remember, you are not building a character because you want him to be Mary or Anti Sue. You want to build a character that is believable and relatable based on the backstories you have written. If you didn't bother giving a proper backstory and simply inserted the OC into canon, you should considering rewriting the entire story and go through the proper steps of building your ideas before starting.

Clothing: While clothing itself isn't that important, unless your character wears nothing and prefers to fight in the nude, the real issue actually comes from people overly describing them - often in laundry-list format. The character is immediately introduced and described at the beginning of the chapter, everything from head to toe is given, leaving nothing to the imagination. Things such as hair colour, eye colour, whether or not they wear accessories, every layer of clothing and they might even repeat certain phrases such as the ones they used to describe their eyes.

Ex. 'Her aquamarine orbs looked to the left.'

What most people do when describing clothing, is go through an entire paragraph of 'he wore, he wore, etc.' until everything has been covered. Not only that, many people would use common prosey words such as 'Cerulean Eyes,' 'Sun-kissed blond hair,' or other wordier descriptors.

To prevent this sort of repetitive description, it's more effective to describe a character through behaviour, action, body language, and dialogue. Not only that, if you are describing a character from another character's perspective, you can have them notice things that would fit their character. If one character was wearing an anime shirt, it might be the first thing an anime geek describes when coming in contact with that specific character.

Backstory: What people tend to screw up in terms of backstory is really just the lack of story and world building. Often times, many people who actually start writing a story in which the reader knows nothing about the MC's backstory. Although this can be revealed later on, many OC authors don't actually write it until it comes. Writing as you go leads to plot holes and inconsistencies, not just in logic but also in personality.

You want to craft your backstory before writing the character so you can really understand to a deep level, in terms of what your character would do and react in and to certain situations.

Remember how I used Lyonel's simple backstory to change how he views the world and his personality? Your character's backstory reveals everything to how your character acts. You can't just bullshit 2 chapters then all of a sudden go from a depressed child to a I-WILL-GET-STRONGER-TO-PROTECT-MY-PRECIOUS-PEOPLE generic Mary Sue. If you want to go that path, make sure you expand on all the obstacles ON that specific path as well. Some plot inconsistencies or character development issues can be fixed by simply adding scenes to ease the change - make it more gradual persay.

DO NOT use the parents-killed-by-dark-mages-and-is-found-by-a-dragon-in-a-single-chapter backstory. That is unimaginative and just shows you are trying to rush through the backstory to begin writing canon. NEVER DO THIS. Just because 1,000 authors do it doesn't mean you should hop on the incompetence bandwagon.

Motivation: Motivation is directly tied into your character's backstory. Things like 'I-want-to-make-the-world-a-better-place,' 'I-want-to-get-rid-of-the-darkness-in-the-world,' or 'I-will-protect-my-friends,' have all been done to hell. Are they necessarily bad? Not really, I'm sure there are many people in real life that are motivated from those reasons. The REAL issue, is the lackluster backstories that usually accompanies OC stories that use those motivations.

Someone's motivation is based on their experiences in the past; not outlining the experiences can cause confusion and hinder its believability.

Conflict: What OC authors tend to do when they get good enough to actually understand what internal conflict means, is that they will give the character a vulnerable moment, just to bring them out right away. Not only that, these characters often don't learn anything.

Experiences or pain that causes internal conflict, will often hurt themselves or others in some way. This will make them doubt-themselves, breeding conflict as they become unsure what they should be doing. It is through this experience that allows them to willingly go a different path, allowing them to make different decisions in the same situations.

Ex. Vegeta was a ruthless Saiyan Warrior, but after having a child with Bulma, he began to soften - not by much. Not only that, this development took YEARS. Then he had conflict during the Majin Buu arc in which he almost went back to the ruthless killer, but then he sacrificed himself after a moment of vulnerability.

 **Conclusion:** All the steps of character building connect with one another. If you don't balance your effort every single step, then the believability and relatability of your character(s) will suffer! Going through the steps as I ordered it is a good way to design your character. You can start from the physical attributes, to the backstory, then to how that particular backstory affects the motivation and the personality. Have a beta look at your character as well!

 **Theme:** SPREAD OUT YOUR EFFORT IN ALL ASPECTS.

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 **Chapter 14 Done! Next Chapter - General Advice & Pet Peeves Part III**

 **Make sure you guys check out my other stories!**

 **Read my profile and join my Trope discussion forums!**

 **[ROTLB: The Birth of the Light Bringer]**

 **[ROTLB: Light of Fairies]**

 **[Chef Ramsay]**

 **[A God's Redemption]**

 **[The Nothing Dragon Slayer's Misadventures in Fairy Tail]**

 **Minipa, out!**


	15. CH15 - General Advice & Pet Peeves Pt3

**Chapter 15 - General Advice & Pet Peeves Part III**

 **Now we finished the building series, its time to peer back into my flaming asshole!**

 **By that, I mean PET PEEVES! YAY! Everyone's favourite! Just like pineapple pizza…jokes that shit is garbage and if you like something like that then you should order a tide pod pizza cooked with bleach.**

 **Anyways, without further delay, let us begin with what makes a story good!**

* * *

 **Fireburns:** The only way to write a crossover fic with characters in Dragon Ball Z or Super with ANY other franchise is to nerf them to the ground. Hell, Piccolo was able to blow up the moon when Raditz came to Earth, so any Z fighter could easily destroy Earthland or Konoha in a single blast.

I don't think there are specific things I wouldn't put in crossovers that I wouldn't put in normal stories as well. For the most part, all settings can work if you simple build it well enough.

 **Guest:** If you are saying that because you believe I do not put what I said into practice, then that is a valid point. I do my research using various writing websites such as Writers Digest and EF when it comes to all the little rules and technicalities, despite some of the earlier chapters been heavily opinionated. However, all the things I said are things I am trying to put into my own writing, if they are 'shit' as you say, because you have found instances where I haven't, then I do agree. Perhaps I will fix them one day after another reread.

Although I am curious, which parts did you consider lackluster? I would like to know the details and aspects of my stories that made you come to the conclusion that they are the literary equivalent of excrement.

* * *

 **What makes a story good:** Now, I know many of you think this particular section is actually based on opinion; when it comes to that, I have made it clear that Harems, Mary Sue, and In-Name-Only Crossovers are clogged remnants of Satan's sewage. Instead of reiterating all that shit you heard from me in the past chapters, I will simply talk about things where most readers will find a consensus.

These include: grammar, logical plot lines, well-written characters, in-character characters, logical reasonings for OOC, realistic pairings, well-explained magics, etc.

Now, the reason why I actually hate harems as much as I do is not JUST because of the harem itself. Sure, the idea of having a man snag dozens of strong independent women is deplorable itself - and I'm not a feminist - but I probably think that because I'm an ugly loser who can never get a single girlfriend. Regardless, most harems contain the faults and issues that make the story BAD.

Basically, if any story did not contain the good things I listed out earlier, then it would be difficult to argue that it is good.

Ex. INO Naruto x Harem with OOC, badly written romance, unnecessary introductions of an ludicrously abundant set of abilities, bad grammar, laundry-list clothing description, etc.

Grammar: The first point I want to make is grammar. Like I said before, most grammar errors are actually due to negligence than actual incompetence. Despite rereading my grammar chapter over four times, someone else was able to spot four mistakes on the first try with no issue at all - I'm a blind fuck? If you want to solve this, simply give yourself a cooldown period before reading again; this way you won't start subconsciously skipping your own errors.

Why exactly is good grammar an aspect of a good story? This is simply because grammar is the technical structure of any given language; misusage of words and punctuation could completely change the meaning of your sentences. Little mistakes like these can easily snowball into a massive plot hole simply because of negligence. Good grammar, in which the author writes sentences as it is intended, will not have those issues. Remember, even the greatest ideas are for naught if they are presented or executed poorly!

There are other technical aspects of course, but I will be skipping pacing and paragraph structure because some people may like reading extremely slow burns or massive blocks of text. As long as the stories follow the basic rules of spacing - new paragraph when there is a new speaker, etc., then it is okay.

Dialogue: Remember what I said about minimizing indicators and using more variety? Well, that is an aspect of what makes a story good. Someone might like the other way, but it WILL be very hard to debate someone using 'he said' or 'she said' every time someone is talking, is doing it right regardless of your opinion.

If the author is capable of using actions and descriptions to set the mood for the dialogue, then skipping the indicator altogether, they are a competent writer. Doing this in a story allows the reader to immerse themselves more into the world, and brings more diversity into each sentence.

You can search it up in any writing guide; they will all say you should use as little speech indicators as possible. Remember, this is something ALL of us should strive for and improve on - myself included! If you simply can't remove indicators, at least use more variety, not just 'he said' and 'she said.'

World Building: Just like dialogue, it will be difficult to debate that those who pull magics or characters out of their ass -without proper development, are good authors.

It takes a competent author to write a good story, especially one with reasonable explanations to new ideas. I'm sure many of you have seen stories where people, new ideas, and magics seemingly pop out of nowhere. If you have read the previous chapters, you will know this is from the lack of forethought and effort.

Stories that explain all the important aspects of the plot - specifically main magics, character backstories and how they tie in, are considered well written. This is because the all the basic needs of the story is met, and I'm sure most of us can come to agree that stories that do this are good.

Of course, there are reasons where someone might think stories that lack world building are good too! I shall explain them below.

Story Building: Story building, which is equally important to world building, is something that must be done well for a story to be interesting. Regardless if you are writing a Harem, God-Like, or a Self-Insert story, each and every aspect of the plot must be well developed, otherwise the setting and premise will become nonsensical.

Of course, many younger readers might not necessarily be able to discern plot holes, and instead opting to read fanfiction as if they were cartoons. They are more reading the story as entertainment at face value instead of fully immersing themselves into a story.

You know how some people read stories to escape reality and go on a imaginative adventure? Well, some people simply do it to pass time, and frankly, the people that read stories this way tend to have much lower standards. I don't blame them for that though, they simply don't have the effort or investment into stories to actually bother with common literary mistakes.

Those who have prepared their plot and characters and minimized plot holes and/or inconsistencies, then they are considering good authors. Remember, being entertaining or famous doesn't necessarily make you a good author. You know how so many people pointed out the plot holes and triggers in The Last Jedi? Sure, it boxed over 1 billion dollars, and it was very entertaining, but you still cannot deny the existence of the plot holes.

Anyways, what I'm trying to say here, popular or entertaining are different from good. A plotline that would follow all the basic principles of story writing may not necessarily be popular. Hell, I thought Geostorm was entertaining and fun to watch despite being filled with tropes and Deus Ex Machima - but then, that's just Hollywood.

Character Building: Character building is something that is just as if not more difficult than world building to get right. A good and balanced character can make or change the experience in a story; this is because the depth of a character determines how much people will be able to relate to them.

Why would a story with good character building be considered 'good?' They are considering good because the characters are realistic, relatable, and believable. There are movies where established trained professionals make the absolutely most heinous decisions just to move the plot further. Have any of you watched Alien: Covenant? All the plot triggers are from bad decisions and from the characters being completely stupid - in a setting where all the characters are 'trained' professionals.

A character is realistic when they make decisions fitting of someone in their position. A military commander wouldn't scream like a child when he sees an alien. If he is on a mission where he expects unknown entities, he might be startled for a second but he would react right after. If a civilian saw an alien spider - they would scream and somehow set fire to an entire base in their efforts to kill them. However, a train soldier would react quickly if not immediately after bypassing the short shock or surprise.

Every character feels emotions, regardless of their position. However, the deciding factor is whether or not they will throw away rational thought in favour of what they are feeling. A young man who just saw his loved one killed in front of him might act rashly due to feelings of vengeance, but a much more veteran man might choose to retreat in favour of fighting another day.

How is a character relatable? This is mainly done through internal struggles and/or conflict. A completely static character that reacts the same way in every situation is more akin to a robot than an actual person. A character in a leadership position might have moments where they nearly give up or think they are unworthy of being a leader. This is actually a common struggle in various movies - but they usually snap out of it after a single speech. What I BELIEVE should happen in these struggles is the leader should have longer vulnerable moments either alone in thought, or in the action where his mind is not in it. Then he could get one of his team mates killed and realizes that's when he has to either make or break.

How is a character believable? A believable character is someone who would make decisions or change reasonably under the established circumstances. For example, Rey from Star Wars was not believable because she was able to defeat Kylo Ren in a light saber battle despite never training with one. She was not believable in that instance because there was no indicator at all as to how she could have had that amount of skill or power.

Why might people like characters that are not any of the three? With that particular statement, the younger reader argument can be used as well. This is simply because the readers are unable to understand the characters past their face value. Instead of actually relating to the character's happiness, pain, suffering, or if they make reasonable decisions, they just want to enjoy the 'badass' moments.

In simple terms, face value readers only want to see the parts where characters succeed, not the countless failures that explore the depths of their struggles and emotion.

This is completely fine however, despite my own dislike of them, they are free to read stories however they like. This is simply my own opinion. This entire 'Why stories are good sections is meant as more of an expository section instead of a ranting one.' I've seen many of you leave reviews asking why do stories such as INO Naruto crossovers are so popular. Well, here's your answer.

They are popular because people like that setting. The main demographics of this website make it more likely that fanfiction users are face-value readers. They simple are not able to or they choose not to comprehend the depths of character, internal conflicts, struggles, reasonable and well-built plotlines, or properly world-built settings. They want to see Naruto make badass OC spells such as a 'tri-elemental Rasengan' or 'gold demon dragon's brilliant fist.' They want the self-fulfillment of imagining themselves in Naruto's position when he gets a harem regardless if its not believable.

People just want to read those stories to entertain themselves. To pass time. Frankly, there's nothing wrong with that. I can rant all I want and disagree with them, but we can only agree to disagree. They think it's good, and I think it's bad. Hopefully those of you that agree with will now understand why stories that lack world, story, and character building are so popular.

Short answer: It's just the setting, and audience.

 **Evolution of tastes - Why people might think differently than the norm:** What exactly are the evolution of tastes? What it is, is how when we age, our tastes and preferences of various things - fanfiction included, will change.

This phenomenon is something most if not all of us experience; you know that feeling when you read a story you use to like, only to seethe in contempt? That is exactly what I am talking about.

In fact, liking harem, god-like, non-world-built stories, etc., can actually be attributed to a phase among the ages that is the main demographic. When I was 17, I enjoyed reading Naruto x Harem and god-like stories as well; however, as I grew older, I began to realize the absurdity of these stories and how illogical the setting was.

Why people can ignore Grammar: Here is a big one. Ever seen those stories, where despite having absolutely atrocious grammar, it still gets many reviews where people say 'MOARRR,' 'UPDATEEE', or even 'Love this story!' People like me, ages 21 or over, might look at those reviews and think: 'how can these people possibly think this? The grammar is horrible! I can't even tell what the author is saying so how are these people reviewing understanding the plot?'

The answer to that question is simply the inability to comprehend grammar. I remember when I used to read shadow knight destroyer's stories, despite the grammar, and think 'hey this story is pretty entertaining!' I can relate to the people thinking such despite having more aggressive opinions simply because I have been there myself. Now, you might ask, why are you criticizing them if you were there yourself? Simply because I regret ever being there, wished somebody got me out of there quicker, and also the fact that I cannot remove past reviews that actually complimented these stories.

My goal for this, is to accelerate aspiring writers out of that 'tutorial' stage of writing, that way, they can realize their potential at an earlier age. However, I mainly do it because I want lower the amount of badly written stories on fanfiction. You know what they say, guns can kill terrorists but education can kill terrorism.

Anyways, when younger readers or writers are reading stories with dozens of grammar mistakes, what exactly happens? If you are 12, it is possible you simply don't know grammar as well, and simply read the parts you DO understand. You know, you just want to read Naruto shitstomp every villain you don't like with an original move more powerful than the canon move set - this was actually the main reason I read god-like stories back in the day. Now, if you are 12, then it is excusable because middle school doesn't really teach you that much about grammar.

However, what about people 16+? Being in high school, they must have understanding on punctuation, tenses, and technical writing skills in general, right? When a reader reads stories with similar grammar mistakes, such as: missing punctuation, wrong tenses, or even missing words, their brain begins to subconsciously filling in the words. It's not that the readers LIKE the bad grammar, it's simply because they no longer see it or choose to ignore it because it's too much trouble to go through every detail while looking at their phones.

Hey, if readers don't see grammar, then it shouldn't be a problem, right? Wrong. If readers don't see grammar, the authors won't strive to improve their grammar, and can actually worsen over time because they are getting good reviews, favourites, and followers despite mistakes. While it's true, people like me can simply 'don't like don't read,' and allow people to subconsciously ignore grammar mistakes; frankly, the time and effort to criticize is sometimes not worth the result - which is usually absolutely nothing. No matter what it is, good and evil, competence or incompetence, it is like a fire, once the first spark is lit, it WILL spread. Which fire becomes greater? Simple, the one you fuel. This is why I try so hard to fix my own grammar mistakes. People who do not want to improve themselves will use my own grammar mistakes to excuse their own.

 **The Shit fix**

Ahhh, the fabled shit fix. Although I have a far more aggressive term, shit fixing is essentially patching over mistakes in a story instead of rewriting it properly.

This includes: lazy justifications, informed flaws, and its subcategories.

 **Justification:** What is justification? Basically, when a reader spots a plot hole or inconsistency, they make up a reasoning without actually changing anything.

These reasonings are often a 'could-work' but often not realistic nor believable.

I was guilty of this myself; when someone pointed out in my Madara story that there shouldn't be a way for Madara to actually find Tenrou island. I simply replied to him saying that Mavis beaconed him there despite not actually changing anything in the story to reflect it. Of course, after a reread, I change multiple paragraphs to make it fit.

Essentially, putting something in author's note or a private message explaining how something in your story works, instead of actually changing parts of the story to reflect that reasoning is what I call: Lazy Justification.

 **Ripples** by The Real Narnia

 ** _'Also, I put a lot of work into this. If things seem odd, it's probably meant to be that way. It will be explained in time._**

 ** _Please review - they get me thinking and writing faster.'_**

Remember this particular excerpt? The author put this author's note, presumably as a flame-prevention or because someone called her out.

If something seems odd, then proper explanation should be given if it is a plot point, and if it is because a sentence sounds odd - it probably IS a grammar mistake. Saying that it's meant to be that way, and that you are some sort of master scheme does not help anyone.

 **Informed Flaws (Definitions from TvTrope):** What exactly is an informed flaw? This is usually the second level of someone trying to build a character. Their first story might have a Mary Sue, until they get called out for it. After that, they add 'informed flaws' that attempt to balance the character. These flaws however, will not really affect the character or the events they are in, in any way.

In simple terms, informed flaws are when people tell and not show flaws.

Ex. An author making a sound mage blind as a flaw, but they are able to use echolocation that could see better than everyone else.

It does not matter how many 'flaws' you add, if a character is not vulnerable to them, they are still Mary Sues.

Basically, how this is done is that the narrative tells us about a flaw, whether through a character, narration, or some other source. That particular flaw doesn't materialize or play a part in later chapters and nobody would know that particular trait was a flaw if the segment describing the flaw was removed.

Ex. OC says 'I can't use this spell much as it drains me' - common informed flaw. Despite the OC saying it, the story and scenes show that the particular flaw doesn't affect them at all during a battle.

Alternatively, the flaw might be showcased as an 'Establishing Character Moment.' What an ECM is, is that the character's motives, abilities, and traits are revealed in a single introductory scene. This is often used in OC stories where the author rushes to the start of canon or, coincidentally, the Festival Arc (common place where authors like to start).

Informed flaws takes place in the ECM because the supposed 'flaw,' never actually shows during the story or plot through the actions of the character.

Ex. A character that said he is impulsive but actually makes strategic decisions.

Regardless of how the flaw is introduced, the defining trait is the total abandonment of the flaw after its introduction. The flaw has no role in the character's action and therefore not relevant to the story - especially if it is mentioned throughout the story but does not reflect the character's actions or decisions.

Like I said before, informed flaws often come when a character is decided to be too unrealistic or Mary Sueish, so the author adds a token flaw or two to add some flavour. HOWEVER, most of the time, it's a result of CARELESS REWRITES.

Sound familiar to you? When authors get called out for having a Mary Sue, instead of rewriting the story from the beginning, they just add rough patchwork. If you fuck up a building and realize the foundations are placed incorrectly, you don't just add a bunch of rocks to prop it up, you got to tear the whole thing down and rebuild it - otherwise it will cause more problems later on.

People who try to constantly patch their stories end up abandoning it because the entire story becomes a confusing piece of constant patch works that it takes a certain amount of ignorance just to see past it.

Ex. I'm near-sighted as fuck and I wouldn't be able to see imperfections in a paint job unless I put on my glasses…except readers who like incomplete stories don't have any glasses.

Anyways, when it comes to flaws, clumsiness is BY FAR the most popular of informed flaws. This is because it can be showcased once - basically your OC being heroically saved, and then it no longer affects the plot or detract from the character's personality or motivations.

Ex. An anime girl protagonist getting saved by her love interest, where the trait is played off as an informed flaw despite the girl still being a Mary Sue.

This can often be used as comedic effects but is normally ignored as the plot demands.

More examples of informed flaws are disabilities; especially milder, inconsistent or not-readily visible disabilities. They are milked for Angst at various moments, without interfering with the character's ability to do the things the plot expects them to do.

Ex. An OC that is A FUCKING DEMON HYBRID and GETS MENTAL HANDJOBS AT ANGSTY MOMENTS TO DEVELOP HORRIBLE PAIRINGS. Even if that OC doesn't even look like a demon and only grow fucking horns with a change in eye colour in battle - then they lose control or some other unimaginative bullshit.

Examples of Informed Flaws: 

In Anime, when a move shortens the lifespan of a character - this is often rendered completely irrelevant because the story will end before any of the shortened lifespan affects the plot.

Ex. Luffy's gear second - One Piece.

Ex 2. Tsunade's Mitotic Regneration Technique - Naruto.

Sakura's forehead in Naruto is also an informed flaw; despite her being teased for having a large forehead, her forehead is not any bigger than the other characters in the manga.

A common one, in Naruto fanfictions, is Naruto's jumpsuit. The author goes out of their way to mock it: they talk about how impractical it is for a ninja, and point out that the orange is bright, or a repeated-to-death joke, the 'kill-me orange.' However, Naruto's getup isn't anymore brighter than what everyone else wears and canon shows it does not hinder his stealth ability. They use this as an excuse to show how good Naruto is in stealth by pointing out how easy it would be for people to see him - this is common in strong/smart Naruto fanfictions that also includes bashing.

Informed Ability

This is the most common types of informed flaws in Fairy Tail OC fanfictions. This is where a character's skill and abilities are frequently mentioned by the cast, but are nonexistent in practice.

Ex. If an OC is said to be a good locksmith - have them pick locks in record time during a mission.

One of the reasons that this happens is because writers are WRITERS. Meaning, they might not know the trade or skillset that one of their characters have.

Ex. A writer writing a musician while not knowing how to read music or the particular meters and chords.

Ex 2. The writer tries to write a military fanfiction despite not knowing any of the policies and regulations in a military.

Ex 3. Authors that try to write a genius but they do so by writing a Mary Sue. Geniuses can come up with better tactics, but they are also capable of failing.

Sometimes, the issue comes from that certain abilities cannot be portrayed or described as well as on certain mediums. A common example would be in song fics, where authors try to describe singing voices with words such as: beautiful, majestic, harmonic, pure, smooth, etc. Everyone has a different idea in what is a good singing voice; voices are something that simply cannot be portrayed accurately in textual format.

Instead of doing research of the skill, some authors basically just go ahead and try to show that particular ability through their limited knowledge. Without proper research, their characters become laughable as they start sprouting Hollywood Science - basically doing something physically impossible. A tactician might come up with a plan that a 5-year-old could think of, and the only reason they are called a genius because nobody else came up with a plan or is just retarded.

In my own story, 'Chef Ramsay,' I had to search the recipe of whatever my character was cooking and had to familiarize myself with 'Chef Lingo.' This is actually one of the reasons I am not updating it because it is annoyingly hard to do it.

In fact, the best way to fix informed abilities so that portrayal lives up to their hype, is to do all the necessary research. Either that, or don't go sprouting technical details that are just plain bullshit to anyone that actually knows the trait.

Ex. A music composer releases a song, and it tops the charts - do this without going into the details of composition.

Remember, a character can show their skills WITHOUT showing the technical steps. It is only an informed ability if there is no meaningful evidence or physical feats that prove they have it.

Ex. I say an OC is very physically strong, and I describe him as 2m tall, 100kg, and a feat of him lifting twice his weight over his head.

Informed Deformities

The physical equivalent of an informed abilities that is often a subset of an informed flaw. A character, who is often not drawn and shown in any discernible way from other characters is found by them to be freakish or horrendous in some way that is not obvious to the audience.

Ex. Sakura's forehead.

Often times, these informed deformities are portrayed by the reactions of other characters instead of actual 'showing.'

 **Writing too many stories:** Here is one thing that plagues authors who have no perseverance, or post-inspiration-spike endurance. While this isn't story breaking, as the issue is simple writing a bunch of stories that are abandoned, it is one of my biggest pet peeves as it often leads to interesting stories being completely abandoned in favour of other ones.

I've seen authors with 20+ stories that are less than 5,000 words, and some with 50+ that are all between 10,000 - 30,000 words long. For me, a story should be at least 60,000 to be able to deliver a full plot, unless it is a one-shot.

For those of you that write with spontaneous inspirations, there is nothing wrong with that. My suggestion however, is to keep those to one-shots, not stories with long plot lines that will be abandoned unless you can put effort in it for weeks or even months.

Ex. I started writing this discussion because I got fed up with horrible fanfiction. Months later, I'm still writing it - that's perseverance. The initial inspiration caused me to rant like hell, but the more recent chapters (not including this one) had actual research and thought put into it, with the final goals of helping aspiring writers.

 **Writing for Attention:** Again, one of my pet peeves. It really doesn't matter why an author writes, but writing just for attention gets me annoyed to no end.

When someone starts writing harems or just horrible story lines just because they know it will have more traffic, the story will become shit.

People who ask in the authors note to vote for pairings, magics, or basically asking the audience to decide what should happen later on in the plot. Some people do this to engage the audience; however, asking the readers to write your story for you is completely wrong and should not be done.

 **Conclusion:** A flaw is something that affects your character. An informed flaw is a flaw that is told through narration, but not through the character's actions. Informed flaws do absolutely nothing to balance the character, as the informed segment is often added after being called out for a Mary Sue, despite nothing else changing to reflect the flaw.

Those of you that want to balance a character after being called out for being a Mary Sue, reread your entire story and rebuild your character. My own OC story had to be rewritten three times because it was Mary Sue.

 **Theme:** SHOW, DON'T TELL.

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 **Chapter 15 Done! Next chapter: Naruto and Fairy Tail Crossovers**

 **Make sure you guys check out my other stories!**

 **Read my profile and join my Trope discussion forums!**

 **[ROTLB: The Birth of the Light Bringer]**

 **[ROTLB: Light of Fairies]**

 **[Chef Ramsay]**

 **[A God's Redemption]**

 **[The Nothing Dragon Slayer's Misadventures in Fairy Tail]**

 **Minipa, out!**


	16. CH16 - Naruto x Fairy Tail Crossovers

**Chapter 16 - Naruto x Fairy Tail Crossovers**

 **Okay, in this chapter, we will be going through the various techniques authors use to 'move' Naruto in the new dimension, or try to mix both worlds.**

 **There are some general aspects of crossovers here as well.**

* * *

 **Crossovers:** Everybody loves crossovers, seeing two or more of your favourite franchises join together and have characters such as Naruto interacting with Goku could be very refreshing! The new ideas, interactions, and potentially new world brings a little bit of excitement to everyone! However, such settings are not without its common list of problems.

When it comes to crossovers, there are certain 'requirements' that you will have to meet to write a proper crossover. The first and most important, is knowledge of all the fandoms you plan including in your story.

Many times, the reader will assume the audience knows about ONE of the fandoms, but give exposition to the other - often times in parenthesis. The issue with this, is that either assume the audience is familiar with BOTH fandoms, or do equal amount of exposition without putting author's notes. For my own story 'A God's Redemption,' I have done the former simply because I don't have the commitment to actual world build as much as I should.

Now, there's multiple ways to do a crossover. I am going to list some below.

1\. World joining: the user creates a new world where all the characters are born in one world or the other, often with elements and aspects from the other.

2\. Character(s) going to the other world: there is a prologue scene in which a character travels to the other world; either from their own volition or simply falling in through an unforeseen mishap.

3\. Character(s) born into another world: a much lighter form of world-joining, this is basically when a character, such as Naruto, is born into another world through various parents.

4\. A single character being in another world: this particular category is dedicated to the stories that somehow become fatalist.

 **World Joining:** World joining is when multiple characters, aspects, and elements are introduced into the crossover. However, one or the other world will be used as a base despite the new introductions.

Ex. Naruto and all the Konoha shinobi in One Piece as marines or even pirates, where Chakra or the eight gates are still relevant powers.

 **Shinobi on Board** by LoneWolf - 01

The story above is something I would consider a world-joining crossover: Jiraiya, Tsunade, and Naruto's parents were all marines; Naruto was also capable of using the eight gates which was taught to him by Gai, a marine in that story.

When it comes to world joining, authors will have to be more meticulous on the details and where to insert the history. Histories that are blank in One Piece could be replaced with Naruto-styled history.

Ex. Madara could have been the first pirate and Hashirama the one who made the Marines.

So how can you world-join multiple fandoms well? My first advice, is to NOT choose more than two. When you try to incorporate every single bit of history in various flashbacks, plot holes will show like hell.

Once you have your two worlds picked, you now MUST WORLD BUILD. YAY. For the most part, you won't be doing a lot of OC world building; instead, you will be choosing necessary parts of the history to combine the histories.

Ex. You could make the Sage of Six Paths be the creator of magic instead of Chakra. Then the Shinobi countries could be countries in Earthland in which all the clans are just guilds. This would be a pretty interesting way to combine the worlds.

Ex2. The Sharingan could simply be eye magic, and Hashirama's wood style could simply be Great Tree Arc combined with Wood-Make Magic.

These I would say, are the important core points of Naruto's history: clan wars, Sage of Six Paths, Madara vs Hashirama, etc. Remember, Naruto DOES NOT need to be in Fairy Tail. Many people tend to make Minato and Naruto part of the Dreyar family - not necessarily bad by itself. Other alternatives could be the Senju (or let's say the Great Forest guild or whatever) and Fairy Tail are allies, and maybe Naruto became part of Fairy Tail because someone from the Senju married someone from Fairy Tail.

Anyways, other than the base world building, you must now build the arcs. Since the worlds has been joined, it is likely the enemies would be different; as in, Madara or Kaguya might be the final boss instead of Acnologia. Kaguya could have been the one that pushed back the dragons and turned the tides as the first dragon slayer - instead of fucking Irene.

The one thing you SHOULD NOT do, is make literally every arc the same as Fairy Tail canon with the Naruto characters joined in. Don't add Obito into Phantom Lord or some other equally unimaginative bullshit then call that a crossover. There is no point writing a crossover just to rehash canon - something that literally every author needs to understand.

IF YOU ARE GOING TO RETELL CANON WITH EXTRA DIALOGUE AND SPELLS DON'T WRITE THE STORY, REGARDLESS IF IT'S NARUTO DAGGIO UZUMAKI NAMIKAZE UCHIHA SENJU OR ICELYNN SAPPHIRE THE ICE DRAGON SLAYER.

 **Character(s) going to the other world:** This is probably the most common form of crossover out there. Basically, the character in one fandom will end up in another world, often through the techniques used in self-insert stories.

Ex. Reincarnation, falling in another world, getting sent by a goddess, etc.

The getting sent by a goddess for a second chance due to Naruto's actions in the war is a fan-favourite, especially for harems - which includes that bombshell Kami-sama which often has a million-year training scene or whatever the fuck.

 **A New World, The Story of A Lost Shinobi** by Lanky Nathan

The story above is actually a decent crossover for Naruto x Fairy Tail; Kakashi sends Naruto to the Fairy Tail through a misplaced Kamui. Naruto doesn't become a Casanova and is actually pretty decently in-character; they even made a language barrier which would be pretty realistic when dimension jumping.

Many Naruto x Fairy Tail crossovers would turn Naruto's character into a ramen-loving crush-blushing friend-powered Casanova, then attribute the OOC to the end of the war. This is one of the issues I have with Naruto crossovers because they just make a completely OOC Canon Sue Naruto just for the sake of their harem. If you are going to write a horrible harem might as well do a SIxHarem - better for your self-fulfillment right? Pretty sure your name isn't Naruto.

When it comes to sending, let's say, Naruto to Fairy Tail, there are many ways that could work.

For one, Naruto could die against Pain, Madara, Kaguya, Black Zetsu, or whoever the fuck, and end up being reincarnated into another world. No, he doesn't need to meet a bombshell goddess that takes a pleasurable form.

From here, you can go two ways: Naruto can either be sent as he is to the second world, or he can reborn as a baby - with or without his memories.

If you want to write an interesting story, go for the latter. If you are lazy and want to rehash canon with harems, go for the first.

Now, once you have chosen the road you want to take, it's time for STORY BUILDING! If you have Naruto being reborn as a baby as Lucy's brother or some shit, then you can do a lot of world exploration and character development! Naruto could use some other magic but still keep his Ashura soul, allowing him to keep some of his original abilities. You don't want Naruto's abilities to be completely new as well, otherwise you might as well write an OC.

My own story 'A God's Redemption' is Madara being reborn as a baby - but he keeps his memories. If you do a reincarnation story without their memories, you are essentially taking away the traits that make the character.

There are various ways to do this, just make sure not to rehash canon.

For the second method, if Naruto is sent as he is, he probably wouldn't be able to go back as he died in that world; so what would Naruto do? He would most likely still be regretful about dying and miss his friends considering he just fought a war. Whether or not Kurama comes with him is optional but him coming would make Naruto more in character.

Now, assuming Naruto has all his moves, he would be pretty damned strong compared to all the mages. He would be able to shit on Acnologia with his Six Paths form. Which means, he would not be in the frontlines fighting all of Fairy Tail's enemies if he does join - otherwise it would turn into a god-like ROFLstomp story.

 **Character(s) Born into Another World:** Instead of being in their original world, a character is actually born into the new world - such as Naruto being Makarov's grandson. Often times, they don't have a lot of relations to the actual character.

This is especially common with Naruto x Fairy Tail crossovers. The Naruto will have a completely different personality and would not be related to Naruto, seventh Hokage, Hero of the war, at all.

This is my least-liked method of crossing over, simply because almost every Naruto is OOC. Think about it, you are making a character NOT related to Naruto of Konoha at ALL, have a completely different blood line, environment when growing up, and probably a dragon parent! Then, you somehow get surprised when Naruto is OOC.

If you are going to write an OC, write an OC. Naruto dragon slayer stories are just the same as angsty OC dragon slayer stories. Naming them Naruto for more views is malevolent view whoring, and just bad practice.

There really isn't a good way to do this, as that would simply be world joining. This particular category is when basically only Naruto is born and ends up becoming completely OOC.

 **Nerfing and Buffing:** What Nerfing and Buffing is when a character previously established is consider too 'strong' or 'weak,' they will be changed, often in unrealistic methods, to fit a better power scale.

This is also sometimes used with the term 'Power Seep,' in which when new content is added in games, it overpowers the existing content. This is compared to how when new characters are added, it completely overpowers the older characters.

Basically, if you have a main conflict, chances are, the hero and villain will be roughly equal in terms of power. Some people accidentally make their OC's too powerful because they decide to play the pull-more-magics-out-of-their-ass game. This causes the author to nerf back the characters - often in dumb ways such as losing their magic if the story is already far in - or simply make the villains ludicrously broken as well.

Of course, it becomes redundant if both the hero and villain both have 9001 magics that seem to counter each other at every turn.

The Nerfing and Buffing, or Power Seep, is especially a problem in crossovers (Shout out to **Aoko Aozaki of the Rinnegan** for pointing this out to me), as characters from different franchises with different scopes of power need to be scaled differently to fit into the new world. An exceptionally common example is when Goku is put into the Naruto universe.

Goku as Super Saiyan, realistically, would annihilate the entire Shinobi world with a single blast if he wanted to - none of the Naruto characters would be able to see him move.

Goku would have to be nerfed millions of times just for him to match the other characters in Naruto.

While the power creep is pretty easy to define, I'll be giving multiple examples to help you understand it better.

Examples of Nerfing/Buffing in Crossovers

For those of you that watched the One Piece x Toriko x Dragon Ball special episodes, you will probably notice that the Dragon Ball Cast, which is Post-Buu Saga, have been completely and utterly nerfed.

Ex. Luffy and Toriko could fight against Goku Super Saiyan on even terms, even though Goku could destroy a planet with that Kamehameha easily.

Ex2. Zoro and Zebra was able to stalemate with Vegeta's Galick Gun, which can also destroy planets.

 **Naruto in Fairy Tail:** For this, I will be using multiple stages of power and compare it with their destructive capability (basically using the VS battles' scale).

Genin Naruto - Fresh out of the Academy.

Genin Naruto 2 - Right after Timeskip.

Sage Mode Naruto - Pain fight.

Fully-Mastered Kyuubi Naruto - When they first fought Obito.

Six Paths Naruto - When he and Sasuke fought Madara's final form.

Grown Naruto - The Naruto in Boruto.

When it comes to Naruto crossovers, most people tend to use Naruto 3-5, this is because they need Naruto to be 'badass' and similar aged to the Fairy Tail canon cast for their harems, and let's face it, everybody hates the Genin 1 Naruto.

Genin Naruto: Okay, the first level Naruto. This is most likely the character you DO NOT want in a crossover. Naruto, at this point in time, doesn't even know how to use the Rasengan, and his only redeeming skill is his ability to use the Shadow Clone Jutsu.

I don't think he would be capable of destroying a wall at this point in time.

In fact, his destructive potential would be 10-B, basically regular human strength. If he uses Shadow Clones, he would be 1000 10-B fighters, still won't be able to destroy a wall.

If I were to put this Naruto in Fairy Tail I would probably put his combat ability below Wendy's, simply because he wouldn't be that competent of a fighter.

Genin Naruto 2: Now we are getting closer; this Naruto is significantly more powerful and now knows up to the Big Ball Rasengan. Compared to before, Naruto keeps some of his core traits but he is FAR more mature than before. He is no longer that annoying brat that literally runs into every battle face first and warrants a million punches in the face.

Anyways, in terms of power, Naruto would be able to destroy a house pretty easily with the Big Ball Rasengan. Therefore, I will put his destructive potential at 9-A - can destroy a room or small building.

I would say Naruto would have a pretty good chance against Natsu at this point. Natsu has more destructive power, but Naruto actually fights like a Shinobi now, which means he would most likely out-strategize him.

Sage Mode Naruto: This is when Naruto gains another massive boost when it comes to power tier. Naruto is more skilled than he was before and is capable of coming up with tactics that can fool even pain.

He is capable of boosting his physical abilities tens of times with the usage of natural energy, and he is capable of using the Rasenshuriken. Now, let's assume he CAN'T summon the toads in the new world - this is just to remove the dimensional barrier factor.

With his new powers, I would rank his destructive potential at 8-A - multi-city block level. Basically if Naruto pumped all his Chakra into a massive Rasenshuriken, it could destroy a good ten buildings when it explodes.

I would say at this point, he would be able to beat Erza pretty easily (assuming he is in Sage Mode). If he fought Laxus, I would say Naruto would still have the advantage, but destructive power would be similar.

Fully-Mastered Kyuubi Naruto: At this point, Naruto gained a FUCKton of raw power. Since he now has full control of the Kyuubi's chakra, he will shoot up several tiers on the power scale. Basically every level of Naruto after this part will have to be nerfed - and they often are - for them to be balanced with Fairy Tail canon characters.

A lot of Naruto crossovers use the War-Naruto for their stories, despite adding a bunch of random bloodlines and changing his character.

Regardless, I would rank his destructive potential at 7-A - mountain level. In the anime, Naruto was able to deflect the Tailed Beast Bombs of multiple Tailed beasts, which are more than enough to destroy a mountains by themselves.

Naruto would most likely be able to completely shit on Gildarts and fight on par with more powerful dragons. It's hard to say just strong exactly, but I would say Acnologia is still stronger at this point. I am confident Naruto can beat down the dragons in the Eclipse Arc without too much trouble.

Six Paths Naruto: Not only did Naruto gain more chakra from the other tailed beasts, but he also gains the Six Paths chakra. This allowed him and Sasuke to be able to fight on even terms with Madara's final form.

When Madara rained country sized meteors down, Naruto was able to blow one up with a SINGLE tailed beast Rasenshuriken. Then, when he fought Kaguya, he was able to conjure up 9 at the SAME TIME.

At this point, I don't think there are any comparable characters to Naruto other than in Dragon Ball Z - he would be able to fight pretty well during the Saiyan Saga.

A lot of people actually prefer this after-war Naruto for crossovers; authors often use the excuse for the war for turning him into a crush-blushing casanova who smiles, adds -chan to every fucking girl and is perfect in every way.

Anyways, I would rank his destructive potential at 5-A. He would be able to destroy a moon-sized object if he were to pump as much power as he could into a Rasenshuriken.

Naruto would be able to completely shit on Acnologia with his finger here, no question. He would have to be nerfed thousands of times just to be comparable to the Fairy Tail canon cast.

Grown Naruto: There aren't a lot of pure destructive feats of Grown Naruto, but we can assume he is far stronger, if not skilled, then he was during the war.

I have only seen one story with 'Grown Naruto' instead of the other Naruto's. This might because Grown Naruto is married and the author would not be able to write a harem, despite the fact only this Naruto will fit that super-wise-casanova Naruto. Not because he is a Mary Sue, but because he went through decades of life experience.

Anyways, his destructive potential would be similar at 5-A, or potentially 5-B.

Grown Naruto could be a backseat god-like character that helps out the canon cast just like he does with aspiring ninja. This would actually be a pretty interesting idea as he mentors the Fairy Tail members. I would love seeing a story like this instead of another God-Like Harem fic.

Conclusion for this section: For those of you thinking to use Naruto WITHOUT nerfing him. Use Naruto's 2 and 3, or even somewhere in between 3 and 4 - basically before he masters full Kurama mode.

This way, you don't have to unnecessarily give informed flaws or nerf Naruto just to fit him into the story.

Ex. His chakra takes time to recover and he is at 10% of his strength - but he fucks everyone anyway. This basically just becomes an informed nerf.

A REASONABLE nerf in power could be Naruto losing all of his chakra and is replaced with magic. Then, he is significantly weaker because he has no idea how to use magic - I've seen this in one fic.

 **Pet Peeves:** Here are just some pet peeves I have with crossovers in general.

1\. When the author puts like thirty end notes explaining every single piece of clothing or quote. Seriously, if you are going to do this, try to keep a maximum of five per chapter.

Ex. For those of you who don't know, 'character' was wearing this from 'fandom,' etc.

2\. When the author has a bias against one of the series. Then, they proceed to write someone like Naruto completely shitting on every character in another fandom.

Ex. When Naruto one shots Gildarts and everyone else.

3\. People who bring in OC characters that copy the abilities of another fandom, then calling it a crossover. I myself have similar abilities in my own Fanfiction to other characters but I am not calling it a crossover.

Ex. OC with Shadow Clone Jutsu and it's a Naruto crossover despite not having Naruto or any of the other characters in it.

4\. Crossovers between two fandoms I know about, then a bunch of other fandoms just get shot in for no apparent reason. Basically, when an author tries to blend a million worlds and it just becomes a clusterfuck of random dialogue and attack names.

Ex. The Royal Guard Mages - only three worlds but it's a clusterfuck.

 **De-aging:** This is one of the things that are completely unnecessary and random. Basically, instead of reincarnating as a baby, Naruto somehow magically de-ages because Kurama healed him.

How did this become a thing? When Kurama heals Naruto, he just, you know, heals. He doesn't regress by like 12 years of age. This is a common plot device which is COMPLETELY illogical to make Naruto find a dragon and reach the canon cast while they are similar age.

There is no logical way to de-age Naruto. Time-space Jutsu DOES NOT randomly revert your age. That is completely bullshit retard crap and you know it.

 **Common Naruto Story Formula and why you should avoid it:** A common story line of edgelord Naruto harem is this - built this formula off of observations of myself and other reviewers.

At the beginning, Naruto gets a painful past in which he is wronged some way - often by the people they are bashing such as the Fairy Tail members.

After that, Naruto will get some random god-like power or a fuckton of bloodlines. Not only that, he will often gain them through a beautiful female goddess or just randomly awaken it - then become extremely god-like himself. Often times, this goddess would be a part of his harem.

Then, Naruto's horrible past catches up to the canon timeline, all the people who wronged Naruto will try to earn his forgiveness except Naruto becomes a trench-coat-wearing unforgiving asshole. For some reason, the author will asspull some bullshit to victimize Naruto even if he is a complete cunt. All the blame lies on the canon characters.

A day later the girls that wronged him is now part of his harem - seriously why.

Of course, once we have a million girls all fighting for Naruto's dick, they will suddenly share him because if Naruto loves them all with 1/1,000,000 of his love, then it is fine.

Not only that, Naruto somehow loves them all equally even if he just complimented them once. That's also how he gets women into a harem: by complimenting them once, crush-blushing, and have the women think shit like: _'He is so hot…no BAD ERZA!'_ That shit is repetitive as fuck.

 _"He is *attractive quality*…no BAD *female character*," *female character* thought with a BLUSH._

BUT IT'S ABOUT THE PLOT AMIRITE?

Anyways, another trait is that somewhere during the story, Naruto will revive girls who is dead such as his mother and Mikoto Uchiha. Then they will be in the harem as well cause why the fuck not right. Might as well add fucking girls from real life or other anime at this point because might as well add some crack elements to this almighty fuckery of a story.

THEN, the goddess he met is going to fall in love with Naruto. So we have Incest, a goddess, and we can't really forget the good ole' Female Kurama right?

HELL THROW IN ALL THE TAILED BEASTS WHO ARE SECRETLY ALL FEMALE AND HAVE HUMANOID FORMS, FURRIES!

Basically, you have the 180-personality from a trench-coat-wearing edgelord to a HAPPY-GO-LUCKY RAMEN-EATING NAKAMA-PROTECTING CRUSH-BLUSHING OC THAT IS NOT NARUTO.

 **Conclusion:** Just because other crossovers do it doesn't mean you have to. Naruto can be crossovered into other universes without being absolutely cliché'd and randomly turn into an OC.

Hell, in my own Madara story, him being reincarnated as a baby is pretty cliché in itself. Still better than him being de-aged to like eight or something and become a dragon slayer.

Also, the quality of a story is inversely proportionate to the number of girls in a harem. Which means, the more girls you have in are harem, the worse the story becomes.

Why? Because writing 10 female characters while being a male is difficult?

 **Theme:** KEEP YOUR CROSSOVER CHARACTERS IN CHARACTER, WORLD BUILD YOUR CROSSOVERS.

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 **Chapter 16 Done! Next chapter: General Autism**

 **Make sure you guys check out my other stories!**

 **Read my profile and join my Trope discussion forums!**

 **[ROTLB: The Birth of the Light Bringer]**

 **[ROTLB: Light of Fairies]**

 **[Chef Ramsay]**

 **[A God's Redemption]**

 **[The Nothing Dragon Slayer's Misadventures in Fairy Tail]**

 **Minipa, out!**


	17. CH17 - General Autism

**Chapter 17 - General Autism**

 **Compared to all the discussions before, this one is going to be far more ranty.**

 **Geared towards the idiocy in the fandom and the absolutely abysmal levels of creativity shown in the story section.**

 **Prepare your anuses for the trigger warnings.**

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A quick note on this chapter, is that some of the sections that will be described below, more often than not, have the author thinking to themselves, 'hey, this is such a good idea!'

Have you ever thought of an idea that COULD be good at first glance, but then stepped back and take a look, only to see the insurmountable number of flaws?

Also, this particular chapter has no instructional qualities. It is just me ranting off my asshole about dumb shit.

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

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 **Guest:** I read a few, actually found them entertaining back in the day. I find them absolutely disgusting now, unfortunately.

Horrible writers seem to have a pattern of making Naruto an obnoxious and arrogant victim that gets away with everything. Then somehow gets a harem.

He wrote the story to make Naruto better because he has a bigger dick? Holy shit, that sounds like playground talk in Elementary school.

'My dick is so big that-' No.

Sounds like they are making Naruto into the dream man they will never be in real life. Not only that, they are too pussy to write a SIOC so they just use Naruto in the many different fandoms they write in to dream about their imaginary Waifus that they will never touch until somebody invents AI sex dolls.

Once it IS invented, they can spend their time fucking a piece of silicon, not writing fanfiction, not breeding, and we will be free in a few generations.

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 **Assorted Garbage of Author Pet-Peeves:** Compared to the pet peeves before, the ones below will be the ones that IRRITATE ME to no end and make me want to eat tide pods as a snack. Are they story breaking? Probably not - they certainly are to me though.

Oh my Mavis: OH MY FUCKING MAVIS. WELL SHOOT MY DOG AND SHOVE A HOG DOG UP MY ASS, THIS MAKES ME WANT TO SWIM ACROSS THE OCEAN WITH NOTHING BUT A BROKEN POT JUST SO I CAN SMASH WHOEVER INVENTED THIS.

You SHOULD say, "Oh my god," not "oh my MAVIS." First of all, Mavis is not a goddess, she is the 1st guild leader of Fairy Tail. That is the equivalent of Naruto saying "oh my Hashirama." Doesn't that sound like the most retarded thing known to humanity? It's even dumber than Ebony Darkness Dementia Raven Way - actual character name.

OH MY HASHIRAMA, I WANT TO KMS.

Of course, I can probably understand where this came from, and why so many edgy teens use this in their own Fairy Tail fanfictions - especially when they are writing Makarov. When edgelords see something they think is cool - everything a 12-year-old thinks is cool is essentially edgy - they think, 'hey! I should totally do this in my own story!' Of course, when they do this, they perpetuate a continuous chain of cancer that should just stop, period.

'Oh my Mavis' is NOT something ANYONE will ever fucking say. That is the stupidest thing I have ever heard in my life and 'Oh my Mavis' translated means, 'please drop this story.'

I hope Muslim Immigrants come to your politically correct country.

Misspelling Character Names: Ok kids, I understand that it might be difficult to spell 'Gildarts,' but seriously. ADD THE FUCKING S.

This is not story breaking as even with slight misspells, I can still easily determine which character the author is referring to; however, this causes an unstoppable rage to boil from my stomach.

I can't even fathom how angry this makes me. I want to read an interesting story but I seriously can't help dropping it because the author decides to misspell a character's name over and over.

IF YOU DON'T KNOW THE PROPER SPELLING OF A CHARACTER'S NAME, USE GOOGLE. SEARCH ENGINES EXIST FOR A BLOODY REASON.

Incorrect Labelling: This is another annoyance in stories. When people label characters or pairings that isn't even in the story yet.

If you have 'plans' for a certain pairing or for a certain character to show up, don't label it on your story until they DO. At the very minimum, wait until you post that one chapter where they DO show up before doing it. Better yet, wait until the pairing develops or the labeled character already has a pretty important role and not just a single cameo.

Basically, if you have a Natsu x Lucy, and then you pair them up in the labels despite the story not even advanced to the point where they are together yet. Then (I don't like Nalu stories I'm just using it as an example), some random asshole reads through your whole story just to not get the pairing.

BAD PRACTICE.

Lemons: Okay, I'm sure many people will disagree with me but I hate unnecessary lemons. Stories that are adventure and not pairing centric, should not have lemons UNLESS the pairing is important and that particular scene actually furthers character development or the relationship.

A humongous lemon scene in a harem story is basically just dumping salt onto a pile of shit and magically thinking that it will taste better.

If you ARE writing a romance-based story, then lemons are perfectly fine as they further the relationship between characters. Writing lemons because you want to write smut between two male characters is something that should not be done.

Respect to those that at least give a lemon warning so I can skip them in an otherwise interesting story.

SMIRKING - shout out to MadaraF'inUchiha: In some OC Mary Sue stories, the only expression available to the OC is the SMIRK. The surreptitious devilish sly suspicious SMIRK.

For some reason, some authors don't seem to be able to comprehend the vastness of facial expressions, and instead have their characters smirk in all situations. Of course, this could be because the character is so perfect that all they feel is confidence and arrogance. I can't imagine anybody making a character smirk when they are sad.

 _He smirked in sadness._

Yep, that sounds retarded.

Go on google and search 'LIST OF FUCKING FACIAL EXPRESSIONS,' then USE THEM.

Synchronized Speaking: This is something I absolutely Hate, with an EXTREMELY EMPHASIZED CAPITAL 'H!' When authors have so little imagination, they don't even add dialogue! They just have their OC's share their dialogue with a canon character.

DAMN! How bad at writing can you get. You already spent time to write a 10,000+ word story, and all you did was summarize the events of canon. Why would you even do that? If one of you, who has done this before, is reading this right now, please message me why you would do this. I don't care if you are offensive, or say I have no life and I should be doing more important things or whatever the fuck, just TELL ME!

"What?!" Natsu and Kai said at the same time.

See how retarded that is?

 **This**

What is _'this?'_ It's basically the authors notes of a certain story that made me want to jab a spinning drill straight into my sternum.

Authors notes are taken from **WOTC: Fairy Tail** by BrxkenArrow

Anyways, excerpt away:

 ** _'And while we're on the subject, Dragon slayer Magic won't be Hawke's only source of magic. I'm also going to be giving him a few Celestial Spirit Keys, some Transformation and/or Take Over Magic, and maybe some Solid Script or Dark Ecriture. I'm considering even making him a Demon slayer as well as a Dragon Slayer… Wouldn't that be something? XD'_**

So not only is this a SIOCxHarem, the author is also adding a bunch of fucking magics with NO logical reason on why he has it. Remember, this shit is a self insert, how in the world did 'Hawke' gain every magic known to man? This said it was self-insert but this is more like an OC Mary Sue where somebody writing on fanfiction will never actually be.

The author has done no world-building and is simply adding more and more magics and probably making himself 10 inches taller than he actually is in real life. The writer has no respect for the canon world and simply pulls magics out of his ass with no explanations what so ever.

The OC's name is also 'Alessandro Hawke Plasma'. Self-insert. Really? Is your name really 'Alessandro Hawke Plasma?' This is some max level self-fulfilling attention seeking arrogant garbage. Don't put self-insert as a tag if you are just going to put an author avatar OC Mary Sue.

On the first chapter, he also makes the OC 2v1 Natsu and Gajeel. Power scaling is high, will probably become god-like at some point, you never know.

Also, the author spills the entire back story in 2-3 paragraphs just to get mental handjobs.

Excerpt #2:

 ** _'Now, as for pairings, I'm not sure where to go with that. Hawke flirted with Cana and Mira, but I'm not sure who should be his actual love interest. I'm leaning towards Cana thought. Or maybe Bisca. I'm CONSIDERING making it a harem, but I am reluctant. Tell me what you think._**

This is actual somewhat of a common occurrence when it comes to harem fanfics. The pairings of it are UNDECIDED. Meaning the author has the fucking AUDACITY to ask the readers to suggest pairings. And then the author continues garbage based on the reviews. I don't even need to say just how horrible this is!

You are taking an unfinished story and letting the readers decide pairings! Why would you do something like this?

This is 100% attention seeking and I would be quite baffled why such a story is so popular if I didn't already know the answer.

Secondly, BISCA? BISCA IS WITH ALSACK. THEY EVEN HAD A FUCKING KID. This story was posted after the Fairy Tail manga finished so the author knew full well of this. But decided to turn his 'Self-Insert' into an Adonis Casanova that crush-blushes every fucking person.

Excerpt #3:

 ** _'Oh! Final harem has been decided. Future changes and/or additions are unlikely. But not impossible._**

 ** _Cana, Mira, Lucy, Bisca, Ultear, and Jenny._**

 ** _Hope you enjoyed the chapter, and I hope the Harem is to your liking! I'm still considering Erza, but I'm very reluctant._**

 ** _Also, if you guys ain't gonna review, I ain't gonna write. I have no interest in writing a story that nobody's gonna read or give feedback on.'_**

Didn't you just say you were reluctant with a harem? Well so much for doing something you were 'reluctant' with because of the reviewers. Six fucking girls? Ultear? Bisca? WHAT.

The biggest bloody problem of fucking harem stories is that the girls in the harems will never actually be in the harem realistically. If you are a girl, would you want to share your boyfriend with another or hell 6 other girls? Probably not.

Lastly, NOT WRITING WITHOUT REVIEWS?! This story is at the very bottom of the abyss of shit and should just stop existing.

Not only that, the way all the woman are portrayed in these stories make them seem like objects after they are included in the harem. They might have some flirty or characteristic moments but that is about it. After they join in the harem it becomes dick clinging horribly written smut.

 **Author Avatar:** Here is a fun little thing which is normally used in an Self-Insert story. It's basically a normal SI Fic, except the OC is…just an OC. It has no resemblance to the author whatsoever and the author is writing that cool edge lord harem crush blusher that they can never be in real life. Seriously, the only time this should be done is in crack or troll fics.

Basically the above section dedicated to _'that.'_

If you do this, just make it an OC. A regular Mary Sue that is FICTIONAL. Saying your story is a self-insert just to write an OC is like writing a Naruto crossover and write an OC…wait.

You know what, my argument is invalid, next section.

 **Refusal to change:** When writers get a bunch of bad reviews about grammar, plot, or their story in general, instead of heeding those words and striving to improve (assuming they ignore the flame), they simply fucking DON'T, and then block the people giving them constructive criticism.

Bruh what?

Shadow Knight Destroyer and Fairy Tail Dragon Slayer are notorious for doing that.

We get it, you have a million reviewers and you get high with your army of 12-year-olds. At least have the decency as adults to not be such a huge cunt. People can flame me to hell all they want, if I flame like a bitch then I can expect to GET flamed like a bitch. If you're going to write shit, expect to get shit. Don't block people or spam don't like don't read when it starts piling like mountains in front of your door.

 **Non-Fact Checking:** What is non-fact checking? Basically when an author writes something without checking for actual established facts, then end up contradicting canon or even themselves.

If you are writing history, make sure to look at the Fairy Tail timeline to see if you got everything right! Also, by getting things right, I mean things you don't intend to change. If you fuck up the timing, get called out on it, don't shit-fix it and say you meant to do it. That's just poor practice. I used to do that, I try as much as possible to not anymore. It's stupid and should not be done.

ADMIT YOUR MISTAKES, FIX THEM, AND MOVE ON. IS THAT REALLY SO HARD TO UNDERSTAND?! DON'T HAVE PRIDE TO BE STUBBORN IN DUMB THINGS. INSTEAD, DIRECT YOUR PRIDE YOU CAN'T BE BOTHERED WITH DUMB THINGS.

Please do your best to check for facts and get everything right! If you are changing certain things because that's the way the premise is different in your story, that's perfectly fine! Don't leave something contradicted simply because you are too lazy!

Here is also a list of fanfiction tropes that never existed in canon that is repeated to fucking hell in stories.

LUCE: NATSU. DOES. NOT. CALL LUCY, 'LUCE.' This is a complete fan made myth. Natsu has NEVER called Lucy 'Luce.' In fact, he calls her Luigi a couple of times because why the fuck not.

When I see this, I drop the story faster than ones with 'Oh my Mavis.' My fucking god, such an innocent cute nickname and all it does is stir the immeasurable hatred I have for the most asininely irrelevant things.

Bottom line, Natsu does NOT call Lucy, Luce. It is worse than naming their child Nashi or Aki Dragneel. Seriously, a cliché fan trope that should just not exist.

Lucy's Lap: OH BOY A NALU CREATION. Remember when Erza knocked Natsu out and basically got him out of his suffering from motion sickness? Apparently, NaLu shippers decided to act on this scene, and make Lucy's Lap Natsu's go to healing station whenever he suffers from motion sickness.

Forced physical interaction, how 2/10 anime-like of you.

Salmon Hair: IT'S NOT PINK, IT'S SALMON. I don't remember Natsu saying this bullshit once. Maybe at the end credits in a dub but that's it…dub. You can't use something that happened in dub as proof for your horrible created fangags.

Matcher Maker Mirajane or MMM: She has never done this in happen, she made a few comments to Lucy once on how she thought Natsu or Gray may have liker her. SHE HAS NOT ONCE CAME UP WITH SOME SCHEME TO SET PEOPLE TOGETHER.

Is it funny that many of these dumb fantropes is all from shipping?

Mates: Fucking hell please, horrible smut combined with badly written romance and shipping. Just end me now. One of you Americans grab a shotgun and just end my pain through the screen.

Yes they are dragon slayers, THERE HAS NEVER BEEN MENTION THAT DRAGON SLAYERS WILL HAS MATING, MARKING, BITING, OR WHATEVER THE FUCK HEAT WAVE BULLSHIT.

 **Author Bias:** What is author bias? Author bias, is basically when you think something you have written is good, while is actually isn't, and then feeling where you genuinely feel a bad piece of writing is good despite its obvious flaws.

Ex. Thinking your Mary Sue OC x Harem is a blessing from the god of literature.

Everyone, including myself, suffers from author bias. In fact, you can't really get rid of it, because everyone thinks something they created with effort is the best thing in the world, even if objectively, it isn't.

How do we cope of author bias? How do prevent ourselves from thinking our own work, even with an insurmountable number of flaws, is the completely perfect?

While there isn't really a set way to go about it, asking a beta who doesn't necessarily like you enough to be bias is the first step. When you have an objective point of view, they can give you actual criticism and let you know of the flaws that you subconsciously ignore.

Of course, if this is your first time being criticized, chances are, you will lash out at your beta and vigorously defend your own choices. It will take you multiple tries to calm down and to be able to take their advice and see it from a different perspective.

After getting the same criticism over and over, and from different people, you can start objectively reading your own works, or rather, more objectively, then you will be able to spot flaws you would normally ignore. Of course, everyone has different writing preferences, once you get rid of the general flaws, everything else could just be taste.

Ex. If you are writing a Yaoi story and the beta doesn't like Yaoi stories, chances are, they will be far more aggressive with their opinions and 'flaws' then someone who is indifferent.

In conclusion, you have to get shit on enough so you can shit on yourself the same way others shit on you, then you will know exactly how to improve the parts that get shit on. Everyone who shits because of preference can be ignored.

 **Author bias of character shout out to Killermemester:** The most common in bash fics, an author's bias is basically when an author decides to do a character a disservice simply because they do not like them.

Ex. Council bashing.

Did you guys know, the council only has three people? There is no civilian council, no shinobi council, and certainly not fucking merchant council. You can't make up some random group of people that never existed in canon just to bash them. Like what? That's what happens when you don't fact check.

Go to the Naruto wiki, the Konoha Council has 3 people including: The Hokage, Danzo, and Koharu.

Anyways, you can't really get rid of author's bias. The only thing you CAN do, if you suffer from author's bias, is to get a beta to correct that potential bias.

 **Conclusion:** I hate everything and I'm a salty faggot. I don't know if y'all learned anything but I talked shit about all the shit I wanted to shit talk. So bye!

 **Theme:** BE OBJECTIVE, USE FUCKING GOOGLE.

 **Base Theme:** I got no life and I rant about bullshit instead of improving myself. Do as I say, NOT AS I DO.

Don't use my dumbass as an example for your own laziness. If you want to talk shit, talk shit. Always think 'Fuck I don't want to end up like this Minipa guy.' Cause he's a cunt of all cunts that is salty about everything. He has a small dick and has no GF and probably never will get one.

Bye, ye cunts.

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 **Chapter 17 Done! DISCUSSIONS COMPLETE…for now.**


	18. CH18 - Addendum I

**Chapter 18 - Addendum I**

 **Okay, after finishing this discussion, I continued to read fanfictions and discovered some new things that I hate.**

 **It won't be a long chapter but some additional notes and hopefully - but probably not - a guide.**

* * *

 **Inspiration:** Okay, while this isn't exactly a guide on how to 'inspire' you per say. This is more of an observation I've seen from writers who were 'inspired' from other authors.

I read a Game of Thrones and Elder Scrolls Crossover called 'Son of the Seven Kingdoms.' I quite enjoyed the merging of the worlds and how it was written. Giving that the OC was kind of Mary Sue, but due to the world building and other positives of the story, I could definitely overlook it.

Anyways, I decide to read some more crossovers and I come across 'Rise of the Divines' and 'The Storms Ice.'

They had gotten 'inspired' off the original Son of the Seven Kingdoms story and proceeded to write something similar. Similar to the point where one was 99% an exact copy on the first chapter! This shit is patchwriting (plagiarism) and was the perfect example of the 'Can I Copy Your Homework' meme!

What the actual fuck?

Go take a look at them for yourself. The son of the seven kingdoms is the original and the other two are 'inspired' works.

For those of you that are getting 'inspired' off of other people's stories or even copying certain ideas. Even though it is fanfiction and we don't own anything, at least have the decency to credit the other author. Even just saying a single line such as 'Inspired off RantingRyuu's work Son of the Seven Kingdoms.'

One: you took someone else's ideas without crediting them. Since we don't own anything on fanfiction it really doesn't matter but at least credit them.

Two: you are taking almost every bloody idea from the story and putting it in your own.

Three: you are doing a fucking shit job at rehashing it. Not only did you manage to had horrible fucking grammar, but you also managed to make your OC a grandstand version of the OC in the original, obviously in a disastrous attempt to make your story seem cool in comparison.

Final: Changing the names then adding unnecessary details to make your story seem different is just shit-fixing. It makes your story look even worse because of the lack of effort put it to fix it.

If you are someone who do this, I hope you get to live long enough to see my aggressive fuck-you face on your monitor.

 **IF YOU GET INSPIRED OFF OF SOMEONE'S STORY, CREDIT THEM IF YOU WILL TAKE THEIR IDEAS. SURE THEY CAN'T SUE YOU IF YOU DO IT, BUT DON'T PASS IT OFF AS YOUR OWN IDEA.**

 **Spelling:** Okay, I really should put this part in the grammar section but whatever.

Spelling should be the EASIEST problem to fix. You know why? Spell check. Hell turn on autocorrect or automatic spell check. This way you don't even have to fix your own mistakes. The fact that there are stories riddled with spelling errors just boggles me.

Anyways, if I make more observations about stupid shit I'll write it down so all of you can take 10 minutes of your lives just to hear my dumbass rant.

 **Bye… cunts.**


	19. CH19 - Addendum II

**Chapter 19 - Addendum II**

 **Okay, so after a couple weeks (months?) of reading fics, I came across some other stuff that I hopefully did not cover already, as well as redoing a section I believed I have already talked about.**

 **Also, I am starting a YT Youtube video series for the Trope Discussions - my channel: Panda Inspirations. First video will be out by the end of this week!**

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 **Crossover-specific Fatalism (Shout out to Warmachine375):** I have already spoke about stories being 'fatalist.' To reiterate, a fatalist story is basically a fic that does not or barely diverges from canon, making it a canon or almost-canon rehash.

The reason I want to go over this part again is simply the frequency of stories that do this. There is no reason for me to even put examples here because that would take too much spare and unnecessary words. I'm sure many of you have already read stories in the crossover section where some new characters are introduced into the main storyline, but nothing important really changes. All in all, the fatalist-crossover fic is simply a retelling of canon, with some extra dialogue and/or attack moves put in. *Oh God No, LET'S TAKE ERIGOR TOGETHER NATSU?!

Why is this bad or basically bad practice? This is simply because the story being a _crossover_ by itself should already entail changes: different world, more characters, different backstories, etc. However, the fact that so many people would simply just put in a character or two (such as Naruto and/or Sasuke in Naruto crossovers) while changing almost or even absolutely nothing.

Perhaps I should add a new thing called **dialogue-adder** stories. Basically instead of calling stories like that fatalist, as many people aren't really familiar with that term, I will call them dialogue-adders. Not to be confused with canon-rehash as dialogue-adders would usually include an extra character(s) in the main cast. Low-quality OC stories are often dialogue adders because the author isn't competent enough to make credible changes in canon or character development.

I will reiterate what I said in the previous chapters; if you want to avoid retelling canon, you have to WORLD BUILD, CHARACTER BUILD, _AND_ STORY BUILD. You have to do all of these things to tell a story. Half-assing either of the three would make cause your story to suffer. I'm sure all of you aspiring authors want to write a story not just you, but your readers can be proud of right? I mean, if an author is writing a story COMPLETELY for his/her own enjoyment, than they wouldn't be posting on Fanfiction. It's not like people write fanfiction just for self-fulfillment and not to create a masterful work of art right? Right? RIGHT? SOMEONE PLEASE AGREE WITH ME? *Get hits by Sonic/Knuckles harem mpreg with 25 OC's*

If your reasoning for writing a canon-rehash or a dialogue-adder because you like canon and don't want to change it, then I must politely, yet firmly, to tell you to leave, for I have no more words for you.

Anyways, other than my harsher-than-most opinion about writing stories that I consider pointless, I have to say that taste itself play a big part. After all, I'm sure there are quite a lot of people who enjoy rereading canon. I myself don't like that and really can't see how people like it. At the same time, I'm completely sure that someone can say the same about my own tastes. Of course, you probably like well-done steak. Again, just because I hate well-done steak, doesn't mean everyone does.

 **Opening Themes:** Okay, so this was something new I stumbled across. This little section is dedicated to the stories that have GODDAMNED OPENING THEMES, JESUS CHRIST ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND?! I have actually no words to describe people writing fanfiction with opening themes and actually describing the songs, adding the lyrics, and each scene. I don't have something against it or anything… but it's so absurd! It's like serving chocolate pudding in a toilet bowl just because you can (people actually do this). Basically instead of a 'I-find-this-absolutely-disgusting' vibe, it's more of a 'What-the-fuck-did-I-just-read.'

Here is an example from **Shokugeki no Soma: Heaven's Recipe** by Fenikkusumaru 2.0

Kurogasa is the OC of the story in case you don't realize the first read through.

 ** _'(Cue Escape by Hemenway)_**

 ** _(Instrumental)_** _The scene starts with the city of Tokyo as the camera moved fast forward through the streets until the screen suddenly slowed down to the pinnacle top of Tōtsuki Culinary Academy, the top of the pagoda shining brightly before the screen whited out to show the next scene._

 ** _(Escape kono kaze ni, namida wo no-se)_** _Kurogasa looked to the horizon with a smile as he sees Tōtsuki Culinary Academy dead ahead. Soma walked up next to him, along with Shiki and Beatrix._

 ** _(Kareru made supīdo agete)_** _He grinned seeing his friends before they nodded to each other and dashed towards the Academy._

 ** _(Tobikoete yukeru kitto kotae wa)_** _As they ran, they were met by classmates of the 92nd Generation as they ran along with them._

 ** _(Haruka na ano sora no mukou)_** _The camera then switched angles, now showing them running towards the camera before they all took jumped up and the camera shot up towards the sky and the title card appeared. After a few seconds, it disappeared to move to the next scene._

 ** _(Kotae ga mitsukaranai koko de wa)_** _In the first scene, there was a side angle view of Soma and Kurogasa with their signatures dishes in the background, then it changed to Erina and Hisako with their dishes in the background as well._

 ** _(Tameiki wo tsuite sora wo miru)_** _Then there were the cameo shots of Megumi, Shiki, Beatrix, Ryoko, Yuki, Shun, Marui, Aoki, Sato and Isshiki as the camera panned from left to right in that order showing their dishes in the background._

 ** _(Aoku somerareta hitomi no oku de kagayaiteru no wa)_** _The next scene had the camera slowly go up as they showed a few Alumni before it stopped at Senzaemon as a silhouette as his eyes glowed, looking intimidating as ever._

 ** _(Doko de mo yukeru, yume wo miteru jibun na no sa)_** _However, the screen went forward past Senzaemon as a silhouetted person appeared with the sun in the background. He turned around and raised his finger in the air while a faint image of a certain red-beetle themed warrior appeared before the screen faded white to the next scene._

 ** _(Escape kono kaze ni, negai wo nosete)_** _In a huge room full of many kitchen stations, all of the 92nd Generation were cooking as they were competing for their lives, in hopes of not getting expelled on the spot._

 ** _(Nobashita te wa asu wo egaku)_** _All of the Polar Star students looked at each other and smiled, determined that they were not going to give and lose to the others and continued to cook._

 ** _(Mou kowaku nado nai namida no ato)_** _Kurogasa and Soma looked towards the front as they saw Takumi, Isami, Mito, Hisako, Alice, Ryo, and Akira as they had their cooking equipment at the ready with a few alumni in the background as huge figures._

 ** _(Nijiiro ni somatte tonde yuku)_** _The two boys grinned defiantly as they charged in towards them accepting the challenge._

 ** _(Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh~ Ahhh-ahhh-ahhhhhhhhhh~ ahh, ahh, ahh)_** _When the other two boys clashed with them, a bright light engulfed the screen._

 ** _(Ano sora no mukou)_** _Kurogasa and Soma look up towards the camera as the latter panned backwards to reveal the 92nd Generation all with smiles and stoic looks on their faces as the song ends.'_

I… have no words. Props however, to the author for even drawing his OC standing beside Naikiri Erina (the story's pairing is OCxErina). Still, I find it difficult to find the perfect descriptions for… this. The author even described camera angles and scene changes! DAMN. Is this a script for animation or something? Please don't tell me they got an animator working on it right now. Although if they did, I would applaud them for their dedication… but damn. It's been awhile since I read this story so I don't really remember what it was about; but I will explain my own dislike for fanfictions with opening themes.

Anime in Textual format

When it comes to fanfiction, many authors try to write their story in a way that their reader would read it as they would watch an anime. Ex. With flashbacks, internal monologues, caricatures, and other.

However, people have to realize certain elements in anime will not work as well when transcribed into textual form. An opening theme is the perfect example. Opening themes often have quick scenes, accompanying music, and certain colours and elements that can't, or rather, shouldn't be described - especially if describing every detail might add 500-1,000 words to every chapter.

When we look at an opening theme in an anime, there is a feeling that cannot be generated through text, this is because the visual stimuli combined with the music allows a certain emotion to be carried out. Describing the images in textual form means that this emotion is all but lost, unless someone has adequate imagery to compare it to. Even then, very _very_ few people would be able to visualize it perfectly the first time. For those of you that read the above opening theme, how many of you were able to visualize that theme to the point where it feels just as moving as the original theme song? I don't know about you guys, but I definitely couldn't. I'm sure somebody would, but the majority? No.

Remember, fanfiction are STORIES. I know many of you want to basically write textualized anime through writing it like a script, but you don't have the imagery and audio to have the same impact, and the fact it is in script form, it won't have the impact of the story.

 **A sassy voice in Gamer stories:** Okay, for those of you that have read or at least know of the 'Gamer' series, you probably have realized that the gamer UI is more announcement and information based, other than being a sentient system.

In many gamer stories (usually the more low quality ones), the author will actually give the gamer user interface a 'sassy' and 'roast-y' tone, probably to add comedic effects. However, they do this in an otherwise serious story, which easily gets annoying after a while. You know my 'book' character in misadventures? Conversations with the book probably got annoying after like 4 sentences right? Imagine a 100,000 word story with those type of conversations every 3 paragraphs.

The user interface system is not supposed to be 'sentient' per say, it is more supposed to just give information based on what the 'gamer' is doing. I can understand they are trying to add more 'flare' to the story by adding 'character' to a non-character, but it might as well have been a 9-tailed-fox stuck in the gamer to add snarky comments.

* * *

 **Anyways, that will be all for now!**

 **Trying to find good stories on fanfiction is like trying to find a Toyota inside a gigantic pile of dung. The chances of doing that are pretty statistically low, if I say so myself.**

 **Again, check out my YT Youtube channel 'Panda Inspirations' for the video series about the trope discussions! (First video will be uploaded by the end of this week)**


	20. CH20 - Some Cancer Shipping Tools

**Chapter 20 - Some extra cancer shit**

 **How many of you read Boku no Hero Academia?**

 **The sub-series, Minipa's Trope Discussions: BNHA, is out!**

 **Anyways, I thought I have finally found all the cancerous bullshit found in the regurgitated mess that is the mind of a prepubescent fanfiction author. *Que Thorin Oakenshield**

· **_I couldn't have been more wrong._**

* * *

 **Soul mate:** Yet another shipping tool. The Soulmate AU revolves around the idea there is someone out there, a true love, for every character. Then the whole story is centered around the main character(s) finding that love, or how that love develops - often makes a part I and part II series on this. Also this somehow manages to invite the unwanted sister of this AU, the YAOI.

This is FAR more common in archive of our own and Tumblr compared to Fanfiction. This could be because of the demographics though. As we all know, 12-17 year-old girls are more prone to writing ship-based Yaoi stories than their male counterparts.

There are many forms of the Soulmate AU's; all of which are varying levels of cringe IMO. For example, there is the one where everyone is colour-blind until they find their soulmate. I'm not sure if this is a metaphor for how life is dull until you find your true love, or just some random edgy kid that just made it up because they thought it was cool. I'm thinking the latter is how it was created, and the first is how English teachers and older audiences assume its created.

Anyways, other than the colour blind bullshit, soulmates can also be in the form of having another person's name on the character's body as a birthmark. In other stories, this could even just be a unique mark in which the character's soulmate would share. For example, a very EDGE as fucking fuck mark would be a goddamned wolf or even a flower for extra cringe… probably inspired from all the Twilight dumpster diving.

There's GOT to be better things to write about then Yaoi smut? Right? Please agree.

 **Mpreg:** H O L Y. Male pregnancies. I don't know where this came from, and I am not sure if I even want to know. Somehow, somewhere, a bunch of autistic failed abortions somehow decided that biology didn't exist and just went for it. They didn't even bother genderbending the characters to make a certain story fit. They just decided, yeah, they aren't hermaphrodites, or females, but they can give birth. Seriously. What, the, fuck?!

The only thing worse then Mpreg is the Mary Sue as a general thing, and that's pretty debateable. If authors want to write a kid fic with a yaoi pairing, instead of just ignoring biology to do what they want, they could maybe ADOPT?! Now I know what you might be thinking, 'it's their story, they can do whatever they want.' What people don't realize is, when you 'do whatever you want' to the point you start ignoring common sense, you WILL be criticized hard. Just like how Mpreg writers get butthurt as hell when people call their pregnancies butt-babies. As in, if they don't have a vagina, they can only shit out the baby. I mean if people can shit out such a horrible fic I'm sure men could shit out newborns right?

At least some people shit-fix a justification of Mpreg through garbage such as: male characters suddenly being transgendered males, hermaphrodite characters, bullshit magic. Some just do the ;my story my rules; garbage.

Since a good amount of female fanfiction writers seem to jump at any story base with even a DROP of homosexual context, I am not surprised how much of this shit actually exists. I'm actually quite curious, what is the male side of this? Harems? Oh right. I'm not sure what's worse, harems, or Mpreg. No wait, I take that back. DEFINITELY, Mpreg.

*Yaoi Harem with x10 Mpreg.

OH GOD PLEASE NO. THE POLTGEIST IS HERE ARRRGHHH.

Regardless, I can't exactly give examples of these people as I have never made it past the first chapter of any stories with this in their setting.

 **Alpha/Beta/Omega:** I'm sure all of you know what I am talking about this particular chapter. Not just cancer shipping tools, but REALLY cancer shipping tools.

I thought the Soulmate was bad, but here I found a more animalistic version, called the Omegaverse. This is often combined with werewolf or vampire AU's.

So what exactly is an Alpha/Beta/Omega?

The characters in the A/B/O AU exist in a society where there is a hierarchy centered around mating.

Alphas being the ones to 'mark' or mate, betas being the centerfold, and Omegas, which are usually the ones that get marked. Oh and guess what, MALE OMEGAS CAN BECOME PREGNANT. Mpreg here we FUCKING GO.

Ex. Laxus is Alpha and Lucy is Omega in a horrible LaLu fic.

On top of all this bullshit, we have mating season, 'HEAT,' dominance and submission, and all that kink 50 shades of grey shit.

* * *

 **Honestly I had enough about write this. I'm sure all of you are getting gut wrenched from my words already. I'll leave it off here and hopefully there won't be any deeper levels of cringe in the landfill that is Fanfiction.**

 **Hopefully that will be able for the general stuff. I'm dabbing into other fandoms to write some fandom-specific trope discussions (such as the BNHA one). I'm also tempted to write one in Naruto itself but there are more tropes than I can count.**

 **Check out my Youtube channel: Panda Inspirations! First video of many is out!**


	21. CH21 - Road to a New World

**Chapter 21 - Straight outta Compton Christ**

 **Good news! After this particular chapter, I will start doing case studies of stories!**

 **For those of you that came across a story filled with Mary Sue shit, horrible OC's, or any of the other stuff mentioned before this chapter, hit me with it! I'll see what I can do with my all-seeing eye of bad tropes.**

 **I actually had a list, but I accidentally lost it from being a blind fuck, so feel free to send me stories that you think could use my 'analysis.' Ideally keep it 20,000 words because it actually takes a considerable amount of effort to critique a 100,000+ story.**

 **Don't worry, it will be more instructional than bashing - although I can't help using my slapstick/dark/rage humour :)**

* * *

Anyways, here's the latest sections for the dumpster dive in my trope quest. I honestly doubt it will end at this point, as you never know what you find at the darkest corners of a 12-17 year-old girl's mind.

 **Past Vomit:** I believe I spoke a little about this, but after reading some more OC Mary Sue fics, I have decided to expand on that subject.

Before I define it, I want to say that those who use the 'Past Vomit' are likely lazy and inexperienced writers; they do not wish to do proper character buildup, instead opting to revealing their entire history. This is likely to gain sympathy with the core characters they are interacting with, making it easier to advance their plot. Ahem, MENTAL HANDJOBS.

Anyways, the past vomit is basically when a character, usually an OC, reveals their entire past/history to the core cast, even if the character is made out to be more secretive and untrusting. The sudden OOCness could be because the author does not want to write the few actual chapters establishing relations and reveal the past little by little, instead, they are impatient and want to start writing certain plot points.

Is this bad? Yes. Unlike other tropes where it's not really 'bad.' Past vomiting, is very much, 100% bad. Doing so in a story basically skips scenes that could have developed relationships between the characters, making everything seem more genuine and immersive. When authors rush through important development like this, the character relationships would seem forced and unrealistic.

This is the different between saying - Natsu and OC are friends, and actually writing multiple chapters where they bond over missions or life experiences.

A newer story that I have read:

 **The Aegis of Fairy Tail** by **BANIX**

While this particular story was actually better than more than 90% of the OC stories I've read, with the OC not being some random dragon slayer that takes all of Natsu's battles and whose contribution surpasses the generic random retort in the otherwise canon regurgitation.

Give this story a read, I think a lot of you will actually enjoy it.

Now, why did I put this story in the new-and-improved Past Vomit section? While not actually an all-out past vomit like in that WOTC story I mentioned some chapters ago, this story doesn't really explore the history of the OC enough, opting to simply summarize a lot of the important events and adding some short flashbacks. When you are introducing an OC, it is important to properly incorporate it into the story.

I can understand, many of you get impatient when writing an OC-insert. This is because you want to get straight to canon events, even if it's something that happened in a flashback - such as Natsu finding Happy. I of all people should know just how difficult it is to write the backstory, especially if you don't have canon as a reference. However, I implore you, all of you, to world build your characters, figure out the relationships between your OC and the characters, then write necessary interactions that would set the foundation for that relationship.

Ex. If you want your OC to be a rival to Natsu and Gray, maybe introduce them fighting each other to a stand still, or even the two rubbing each other off the wrong way.

Now to get a little bit more specific into the Aegis of Fairy Tail - it is a reincarnated OC insert. So _not_ an SIOC. It is basically taking a random character from the author's world (or even call it the author avatar), and put it into Fairy Tail.

The grammar, structure, was actually good. It didn't make me want to slam a bowl of acid straight into my eyes from reading it, neither did it make me think I was reading an unholy combination of Russian and Hindi.

Despite the good technical aspects however, the main thing was the pacing.

The OC was inserted into the story in X778 I believe, and was 15 when he was inserted - so the OC's supposed birthday would be somewhere in X763. This would make him 21 when canon starts.

Right at the beginning, the OC is attacked by bandits/dark mages, and awakens a magic called Barrier Make - basically the powers of Bartolomeo from One Piece. Then, he is immediately found by Makarov, allowing him to join Fairy Tail.

For me, this is actually a red flag in terms of OC story telling. Within half a chapter, the author has already established the base magic and the fact he would join Fairy Tail. Of course, you don't have to write a 60,000 word prologue like I do, but you shouldn't skip all the important events - events that _determine_ the fundamentals of _your_ character!

Scenes and chapters that should have been dedicated to exploring on _how_ Elder Tyrell (the OC's name) decided to go on Barrier Magic, its limitations, the controls, and basically all the world building aspects were skipped. I know, I know. Everyone has their different writing styles - but I personally don't like this style of writing, simply because it gives the author can excuse to bypass assumed limitations of magic simply because no such limitations were mentioned by the author.

Basically, a set up for major asspulling - just like Mashima. The world building and mechanical aspect of magic is so blurred that Mashima can basically just randomly pull out powers like Bleach did in the Final Arc and somehow call it reasonable. I mean at this point you might as well print off all the garbage stories on Fanfiction, dump it in a barre, then bob for it - that's your next magic.

IMO, if you are going to write an OC into the backstory, show us some scenes of him practicing magic, some scenes of them studying new magic, or even coming up with ideas as a theory!

If Elden was going to learn barrier magic, perhaps a scene of him trying out different magics, then realizing he was more attuned to barrier make? Then, you could have him thinking to himself on whether or not he could manipulate the barrier instead of just forming them? What about shapes? Could he basically use barrier make as a base then create creatures like Lyon by using hundreds of thousands of barriers as the individuals 'polygons?'

Anyways, other than the magic itself, what about joining Fairy Tail?

Some people think joining Fairy Tail is completely cliché, and an overused Trope. Is that inherently bad? Nope, I don't think so. What IS bad is when people try to subvert tropes by having a character join another guild and end up doing a worse job than Margaret Thatcher is at being a competent leader.

So what I'm saying is, if you are going to have your OC be in Fairy Tail, there is nothing wrong with that. Everything comes from your presentation. If you write an OC-insert just to make the story fatalist, then that story is what is wrong with Fanfiction.

Now why is Elder Tyrell joining Fairy Tail first thing bad for the story? Because this eliminates a lot of the elements that brought him to Fairy Tail - important aspects of character development. Like I said in previous chapters, if you suddenly just insert a character that is already strong, then what is the point? It'll basically become a curbstomp of epic proportions. Is a battle even intense if your character can shit all over Jose by _actually_ shitting on him?

If you want your readers to build a connection to the OC, you need to show their struggles, their achievements, how they OVERCOME their struggles. Don't just summarize their struggles because that. Does. _Nothing._

If you want to see what I am talking about, read the first three chapters of the story. The author goes from OC joins at X778 into canon X784 within the span of THREE chapters. Maybe about 10,000 words? He summarizes all of the interactions and history within the first, sets up the pairing in the second, and then basically shows off Elden's strength in the 3rd with how he stacks up to the guild.

The information is there of course, but the weight? While I disagree with how that story had done things, I'll leave the final choice up to you. There are probably some people that think my word as some sort of literary bible. But I'll say to think for yourselves. If you think the story is compelling and delivers enough impact, then we can agree to disagree.

 **Different Tastes and Opinions:** Okay so particular section might be more confusing in nature, but I will try to make it instructive as well. So, when it comes to having different tastes and opinions, what am I really talking about here? There's actually a considerably large interval in the grey zone where people draw their lines on what makes a story 'good,' or plain garbage.

Remember that story, Uzukage's Dragon Sword? The one that actually looked like it was written by a mentally deficient monkey drunk on vodka and had a harem? There are people that enjoy that story, although I would like to think, there are more that wouldn't.

Regardless though, what I want to talk about is the line itself.

For me, there are multiple 'lines' One I draw that marks what is absolute garbage, another I draw where the story is actually entertaining, and the last one is where I actually see the story as a piece of art, and not just something you read to pass the time while taking a shit.

Now, people are going to disagree with you, no matter what you say. The trick is to be confident in what you say, but always be willing to rethink what you believe. Someone may bring up 10 points, and you acknowledge 4 of them and end up reforming your opinion based on that, or maybe even just dismiss all ten altogether.

This is a lesson I learned, and am _still_ learning when it comes to Fanfiction. Sometimes, when you write a story, someone may not necessarily like what you are planning.

In fact, for my One Piece story, my beta fervently disagreed with me on the method of reincarnation and the OC's abilities, but even when I considered his point of view, I still ended up going with my original idea.

So, what exactly am I saying? Whenever someone posts a review, a PM, or even says something disagreeing with your choices. You don't have to just straight up dismiss them and think 'I'm right, you're wrong.' Because when it comes to writing a story, there is no such as right or wrong. It all comes down to how it feels to write the story. If you absolutely love what you are writing, chances are, other people will feel that passion and love it too.

If you decide to follow someone else's advice and end up hating the story, chances are, the readers will feel the lack of passion and end disliking it as much as you do.

 **Following through a story:** Now some of you might be thinking, why is Minipa saying this part? How does it help us?

Well, I've seen a lot of people with stories that start off as something interesting. An unused prompt that stands out from the other stories, only for it to stop updating years ago. How come this happens? _That,_ was what I asked myself.

I realized for many of these stories, the authors will write based on the reviewers, and not based on how they want the story to go themselves. I get it, some of you might not even know where to go with the story, and want to drop it. Perhaps you lost the passion with the story you had when you started, but just think, what made you start the story in the first place? It takes a lot of planning to write a full story hundreds of thousands of words long, and I will say that no matter how much initial passion you may have with a prompt such as 'What if Gray had a little sister?' chances are, you won't be able to carry the story through.

Personally, I think a story like that is better off as a series of one-shots.

So for those of you that stop writing because you don't know where a story is going. I got some advice for you. Story Build, character build, and world build!

If you are trying to build a house before setting the foundation, you won't know what you are doing! Just like a story, if you think of plot points as they come, then you get: plot holes, inconsistencies, random bullshit, and more! Then, when reviewers come and spots these, they will critique you on that and make you lose confidence and passion in the story. Then, when that disappears, what motivation is there left to continue?

However! If you had all the plot figured out, all the character relationships planned, AND the arcs planned. Then you will never lose sight of the story. Plot inconsistencies would be few and between because you have all your notes, and there will be far less random bullshit because you have already built all the fundamentals of a story! Not only that, but if your passion carried you through the building process, you will be more than likely to follow through because you have all the ingredients ready!

Again, I wrote this section because I want all of you aspiring writers to be able to rekindle that passion. Some of you may treat Fanfiction as more of a 'story Instagram,' where you just post one shots to see if people like them, then end up writing a story. I'm not a big fan of that, but if it works for you, that's totally cool. Regardless of how you 'test the waters' so to speak, ALL stories begin with its skeleton, make that first and everything will come.

So please, no matter how you begin a story, how you plan to write it, or how many chapters you plan. Just try. Write down whatever you can think of in world building, story building, and character building. Hopefully the chapters inside this discussion helped you on those things, and I do wish all of you well in writing future stories.

 **'Plans' of authors:** While this is something that I observed on the reddit Fanfiction discord server, I see it sometimes in authors note as well. This is borderline shit fixing but none of them are story breaking. Regardless, I'm still going to do a short section on it.

Okay, so this section is directed particularly to people who ask other people for betas. This actually ties back to the differences in taste and opinion - since if you ask for a beta, and there's part of the back story that they don't agree with or something that feels missing - then the beta might ask questions about it. Then, the author will reply with 'I got plans for that.'

You might think, why is this a problem? Compared to bad grammar, this isn't even an 'actual' problem. It's more of something to be aware of so the process of betaing will be smoother - regardless if you are the beta or the one being beta'd.

Okay so let me explain on this particular issue, when you ask for a beta, you have to give them enough information to work with. Not only that, you should make it clear what you expect from your beta. Do you just want them to look over grammar? Do you want them to help you with character building? Story building? World Building?

Remember, a beta's job is to help the author achieve the goals of the author. And as someone being beta'd, it is important to give them ALL the information needed. If you have your world building notes, just copy and paste the entire thing (this is basically what I do with my beta - then he will look at parts that seem unreasonable and then I would fix it before actually incorporating it into the story). This allows me to not have gaping plot holes or magic inconsistencies... AND REMOVES THE NEED TO ASS PULL MAGICS JUST TO KEEP CHARACTERS ALIVE.

So, if you ever have to say 'I have plans for that,' then you're basically not giving the beta enough information. This section actually also comes down to WORLD FUCKING BUILDING. If you have your notes on how your story will go, then your beta already has a pretty good idea what you are looking for.

If you have an OC, and you want your beta to look at the character and see if it's reasonable, make sure you give them all your character building notes. Don't just be like - this OC is John: he has brown hair. That's like shitting on an empty canvas and telling your beta it's supposed to be the Mona Lisa.

For reference on character building - Look at Chapter 14, it outlines how I make notes on OC's and/or canon characters that have changes to them.

 **Reincarnation Fics - Baby arcs:** Okay, so this part might be a bit different compared to the sections above, but is actually a common issue I have spotted regarding a lot of SIOC stories - specifically on reincarnation.

Have you guys ever read stories where it begins as an SIOC, as maybe Lucy's twin brother or some other random bullshit. Then you notice that the story is 100,000 words long, and you say to yourself, HELL YEAH THIS WOULD BE WORTH A READ, I wonder what Arc they are at now?

But, you discover that all 100,000 words is dedicated to age 1-6 or an overly smart OC that somehow managed to start twelve businesses, cure cancer, remove poverty and begin the fundamentals of forty seven lost magics.

I get it, you guys want to set up your world building, but there _is_ a thing called meandering. If you are able to write a story longer than the first Harry Potter book and somehow not even hit certain plot points, then there is something wrong. 100,000 words of a baby/kid arc, constant mentioning of the language barrier despite it just becoming annoying as time progresses, and numerous chapters set up in the same way to explain how the OC has powers that they shouldn't even have in the first place.

Basically, you have a list of powers and skills you want, but you know if you just pull it out of your ass, you will get called out for it. So what do you do? Write a million chapters and show them struggling. I get it, you want your OC to be fucking bad ass, but even struggling and training does not justify how they are able to get dragon slayer magics with enough colours that it might as well be a skittles factory.

NOTE: WRITING BUILD UP IS NOT A VALID REASON TO MAKE YOUR OC AN ALL-SLAYER EVERYTHING.

So what exactly am I saying here? If you have an OC, and you want them to go through the growing up arc, you DON'T need to write a game of thrones length novel literally explaining every detail of their life. If you want scenes to build up magic, maybe do a scene where they start learning, and a scene where they make a new spell.

Mashima has set pretty DAMNED low standards when it comes to training scenes - basically time skip and ass pull. Just putting 1-2 scenes in magic training has already put you above the curve. So there is _zero_ reason to put 20 scenes for each of the twenty spells you want your OC to have.

If you show your OC creating an army of spiders with a maker magic, then chances are, they will know how to make comparably easier objects. Because the audience can _assume_ that with control to make a hundred tiny critters, they can make simpler objects. Like with Gray for example, we know he uses Ice Make, does Mashima show a scene of him practicing every single spell he has? Nope, he just has him learning Ice Make from Ur when he was young, and that's basically it.

In fact, you can actually pull it off without even showing your OC use the spell. You can just do a scene, where the OC is thinking to themselves on how the spell COULD be used. Timeskip, then just do a quick scene of how they figured it out. I would accept that myself as a reasonable explanation for a new spell - but not if you do it 50 times and for 12 different slayer magics. I don't need 10,000 words of frame-by-frame analysis of every single angle and muscle spasm to justify the creation of a spell.

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 **Also, I'm basically out of sections to think of, so it will be case studies now.**

 **Hmm, should I put case studies in this same story or start a whole new one altogether?**

 **Put a story that fit the category from the beginning author's note into the reviews, or comment a section that you want me to expand on, and I will add a section on the next chapter.**

 **See ya, you cunts!**

 **Check out my Youtube channel: Minipa! First video of many is out!**


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